Mirror Mirror
by catsvrsdogscatswin
Summary: "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? It sure ain't you and it sure ain't me, so who's the next victim gonna be?" Alfred Jones had always been a scaredy-cat when it came to the paranormal. (It was more Arthur's schtick.) But when Alfred is murdered, Arthur's investigations turn up something far more sinister than just a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. Human AU.
1. Trap Snap

**_Sooo…I was NOT gonna post this story until I had a lot more to go on, but I feel so guilty about the prolonged writer's block that I've been going through lately that I just wanted to give you guys something of mine to tide you over until, ya know, I got to work on the five or six other open stories that I owe you guys chapters for. *clouds of gloom* I'm a bad, bad author. Writer. Whatever. You know what I mean. So then, this is a little something known as "The Supernatural-inspired Hetalian plot-bunny that got_ WAY TOO LONG FOR ITS OWN DAMN GOOD. _" So yeah…the story is going to be set in Minnesota, not because I'm an egotistical person like that (okay maybe just a little) but because A) we're a very suburban state and B) I'm familiar with the geography and sociology and weather and whatnot in these parts and am far too lazy to create or research a whole new one. If you're someone who isn't a particular fan of mine and clicked on this story because the summary sounded vaguely interesting, welcome. I have two other stories in the Hetalia fandom, one with 2ps and one without, so if you enjoy this one, feel free to check out the others. Other than that, have fun!_**

 _ **January 25th, 2017**_

* * *

 _There was an old woman who had three sons,  
Jerry, James, and John:_

 _Jerry was hung, James was drowned  
John was lost and never found_

 _And that was an end of the three sons  
Jerry, James, and John!_

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

The whispers were starting again.

Alfred Foster Jones, age 19, freshman in college, closed his eyes tightly. There were bruise-colored circles underneath them, and his cheekbones stood out sharply against his sweaty skin. His nails bit into the fluffy, fat pillow that he was clutching to his chest like a five-year-old, but godamnit he _felt_ like a five-year-old, alone in the dark and too scared to even get out of the bed, knowing that there was _something_ out there but not knowing what or how to fight it off, knowing that it'd disappear as soon as he screamed for help or got to his parents, but unable to take that final step and actually call out.

He swallowed thickly and closed his sapphire blue eyes, trying to regulate his breathing. He ran through his facts again, trying to get his mental ducks in a row. He was gonna be a lawyer when he got out of college; facts were important and made everything make sense.

Even when no sane person could ever _possibly_ make sense of anything this fucked up and _insane_ -

He squeezed his eyes tighter shut. _Don't think about the freaky bits. Don't think about the freaky bits. Facts. Facts._

Okay, the _facts_ were that he was either going completely mental-institute, padded room, happy-hugjacket insane, or that something creepy and Arthur-ish was going on here.

Not that Arthur would have had anything to do with it. He was a supernatural geek, yeah, but the most Alfred had ever caught him doing was painting some kooky symbols under their beds when they were little, and stuffing weird-scented plants in the eaves when they were older, insisting that both the plants and the symbols were for protection against evil. Arthur wouldn't…wouldn't _cause_ anything this dark and scary, on purpose or otherwise.

Besides, he hadn't been home in two years. He was busy back in his home country, trying to make a living at writing books. There was no physical or anti-physical way for Arthur to have anything to do with this.

Alfred missed him. He'd thought about calling him half a dozen times; this stuff was right up Arthur's alley. He'd probably be able to figure it all out within seconds with his freaky British deduction mojo and spooky-stuff know-how. But somehow every time his fingers would drift near the phone, he'd freeze up and move away. How the hell would he explain this? What the hell would even he _say_ to Arthur?

"Hi, I'm feeling a little stressed out and I think there's something creepy in the house. Please spend several thousand dollars to cross the Atlantic and come back home with no warning or reason whatsoever. This is highly urgent and not at all the result of me turning into a fricking lunatic. Bye."

Yeah, that'd make Arthur _real_ eager to come and help.

 **Thud**.

Alfred jumped as if he'd received an electric shock, whipping his head up and frantically looking all around his room. Dark blue wallpaper, fine. Dresser, fine. Mirror over the dresser, fine. Closet door, still open. Clothes inside, fine. Door to the hallway, still open. Nightstand, fine. He pressed his nose against the pillow and tried to calm his racing heart, chanting the one of the divine Horror Movie Rules of Survival over and over again in his head.

 _Don't go investigate the strange noise. Don't go investigate the strange noise._

 **Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-**

 _Don'tgodon'tgodon'tgodon't-_

 **THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!**

"SHUT UP!" Alfred screamed mindlessly, clutching the pillow so hard that he could feel his heart beating against it.

Silence.

Alfred's wheezing breathes were the only sound in the entire house now; even the air conditioning was still. The silence was far more overwhelming and frightening than the thumping noises from before, and Alfred curled up even further, his sapphire blue eyes frantically roaming the room as he shakily reached out, wrapping his fingers tightly around his phone and bringing it to his chest, hunching over it like a predator bending over its prey as he stared into the freshly glowing surface.

 _Contacts:_

 _Mom_

 _Pops_

 _Artie_

 _Keeks_

 _Gil-Boy_

 _Matt Attack_

 _Bel-Girl_

His fingers hovered over the keys…

…and pulled away again.

It was probably Nothing O'Clock in British time, so Arthur wouldn't be exactly overjoyed to hear from him right now, especially about such an asinine subject. Not to mention the fact that he had an anal-retentive aversion to modern technology, so the cellphone the family had conned him into buying –which might still be the only one he owned– had a 50% chance of being forgotten and buried underneath a couch-cushion.

Kiku was almost certainly brain-dead-buried in one of his latest computer projects, and if not, busy crying his eyes out in a coffee shop –regardless of the hour– over his or others' character art. His phone was dead 90% of the time anyways, since every last one of Kiku's outlets was always in use for far more important things than a mere _charger_.

Gilbert and Matthew were off somewhere in the far reaches of the Boundary Waters for the rest of summer break, so good fucking luck reaching either of _them_. He doubted they'd even taken their phones with them, and even if they had, reception up there was a total bitch.

Bel he knew only vaguely. She was in his contacts mostly for free apple pie –like, yum!– and girlfriend-of-sibling purposes.

His parents were out on the town for the night, spending time together.

Almost against his will, Alfred's fingers began to move over the keys, sending a message addressed to his mom and dad.

" _Love you both. You guys are the best parents ever._ "

 **Ding.**

 _Message received._

He hit send and almost instantly felt a warm glow of relief spread through his chest. Things felt –tied up. Even if he was brutally Friday-the-13th-style massacred in the next five minutes, he had at least said something to an outside party.

 _Hahaha fuck you horror movie tropes._

But…now that he had just sent that…he felt kinda ridiculous. I mean, here he was, a grown-ish man (ish) of 19, cowering on his bed because of some weird thumping noises and whispers through the pipes. Granted, he wasn't quite ridiculous-feeling enough to get off the bed and go downstairs and investigate –it was still the number one fucking way to get killed in a horror movie!– but he was feeling ridiculous enough to maybe, possibly, tomorrow when it was bright out, go down and poke around the basement. Or wherever the hell the noises were coming from. He could be scientific about this, put motion sensors and sound recording devices everywhere. Yeah, be scientific about it. He was gonna be a lawyer, he could find smart solutions to scary problems. Arthur would be proud of him.

Quickly pulling out his journal, Alfred opened it up to the most recent blank page and started scribbling down all his ideas for tonight, before snapping it shut and chucking it inside his nightstand drawer. He still got antsy about exposing such a diary-like (and completely old-fashioned) object to the open air, even if there was no one else around.

His ears pricked up as he heard the familiar sound of his parents opening and closing the door, followed by the jingling of keys and solid footsteps. He eagerly uncurled from his little fetal ball, glancing at the clock as he did. Writing everything out by hand took a lot longer than typing; it always surprised him with how long it took to put down everything that was on his (admittedly somewhat tangential) mind.

"Yo, mom, dad, you guys have fun?" he asked loudly as he turned on the hallway light, clomping down the stairs as he tried to dispel the last threads of fear. It always went away when people were around. That was…completely natural, after all, an instinctual pack reaction enforced by centuries of tried-and-true testing. Safety in numbers and all that. Totes normal. Especially if there was nothing actually going on. Person gets scared, whether the fear is warranted or not, they feel the need to band together in a group. Yup, completely and totally normal.

He smiled at the warm, welcoming glow of the already-lit living-room lamp, which certainly hadn't been on when his parents had left the house. He could hear the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen –one of 'em was probably putting the dishes away, probably whoever hadn't paid the bill– and subconsciously brushed his hair away from his eyes, looking in the floor-length living-room mirror to do so. Despite the ever-changing layout of comfy couches and chairs (it wasn't his fault they were so damn break-able!) the mirror had always been there, as had the drawers in front of it, and the dull emerald-green carpet, and the dinky little windchime that hung above the glass door to the porch and the yard. Constants. They grounded him. His eyes swept past the front door, and then he froze.

No shoes. Mom and pop always took their shoes off when they entered the house.

The pots and pans abruptly stopped clattering.

He swallowed hard. Alfred didn't call out for his parents; that would be majorly breaking one of the most important Horror Movie Rules of Survival –don't call out for what you know wasn't there. Doing so would almost certainly render him dead in almost any horror movie imaginable, and since following the rules as if he himself was in a horror movie was working for him pretty damn well so far, he was gonna continue doing so. His eyes flicked around the room, looking for a weapon. Couldn't use the lamp, it had the light. The TV remote wouldn't frighten anything bigger than a cat. He finally grabbed the glass paperweight off of the coffee table and curled his fingers firmly around it, slowly turning around in a circle. He should put his back to the wall –that way nothing could jump-scare him from behind.

Alfred backed up against the drawer, trying to regulate his breathing. He didn't hold or slow his breath down –another blatant movie-trope invitation for a jump-scare– and he didn't close his eyes to try and calm himself. He really, really, _really_ wanted his real parents to be home, right now. Or Artie. Or anyone, in all honesty. Anyone so he could have that faint grasp of normality, of company, of strength-in-numbers, of-

He felt cold. Really, really cold. Had the AC turned back on?

Alfred did not turn around. He knew what happened in horror movies to those who suddenly turned around after feeling cold at their backs, and he did _not_ intend to die tonight, no sir. He readjusted his grip on the paperweight and took several steps away from the solid presence of the drawer, feeling like he was one of those Victorian duelists that Artie was always reading about.

 _One, two, three. About face, present arms._

Alfred clicked his heels together and turned on a dime, the paperweight coming up and flying into the –drawer. Alfred's jaw went slack as he saw the damn thing _levitating_ , and a dark flicker of movement behind it even though there was literally nothing but the goddamned mirror and the wall, and-

 **WHAM.**

 _***Time Skip***_

"Alfred? Alfred, hun, we're home~!" Mrs. Cathy Jones chirped happily, swinging open the door. "We brought home some takeout, I can heat it up for you if you don't mind!"

The rest of the house was silent, and she frowned imperceptibly as her husband, one Derek Jones, came up behind her. "Alfred a no-show?" he teased lazily as he kicked off his shoes, and she bustled over to the kitchen, putting down the piece of apple pie they had saved from the diner.

"The poor boy has been bounding down to greet us every night like a frightened puppy. Maybe he's finally gotten used to being back home." she said reasonably, and Derek snorted.

"Right…" he muttered, striding into the living room and reaching down for the lamp.

 _Click._

" _ **ALFRED!**_ "

 _ **6.45 PM, USA Central Time**_


	2. Private Eye

_**Continuing on with my theme of**_ _ **"dump as much new material on the nice literature-deprived people as I can", here's the next chapter.**_ _ **Pretty please give me nice reviews, they are food and drink and all sorts of deliciousness to me. Also, I will be borrowing various kinds of various superstitions and folklore to make this universe, so, ya know, kudos to you if you spot my references or know where they're from. Please point it out to me so we can geek together!**_ _ **Yeah, so,**_ _ **I also have no idea what the proper procedure for murder-body removal is. I just guessed that an ambulance was probably involved and not, like, a hearse. 'Cause they have to bring it to the morgue n' stuffs and not to the cemetery. Pluswhich dead murdered bodies often have blood leaking everywhere and the nice hearse owners probably don't want that gunk all over their cars. They obviously don't just stuff it into the back of a police car, right?**_

 _ **January 25th, 2017**_

* * *

 _There's a lot of folklore about mirrors; that they reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul, which is why it's bad luck to break them._

* * *

 _3_ _rd_ _Person POV:_

The sun gleamed down on the suburban street, the maple and oak trees lighting up the yards in a blaze of fall color. The paint on the houses was fresh, as was the roofing and blacktop. Many of the houses had flowers in the front yard, or a swing set, or a set of shrubs. The air was crisp and cool, but enough summer warmth remained that venturing outside would be a treat rather than uncomfortable, and the scent of apples and pumpkins seemed infused into the air, as was the particular freshness unique to autumn.

The idyllic scene was somewhat ruined by the ambulance and contingent of police cars outside one of the aforementioned suburban homes.

"Mrs. Jones, please remain calm." a thick-set, serious-looking officer with "Beilschmidt" on his badge was repeating to the sobbing mother, his blonde hair slicked back professionally and his ice-blue eyes solemn as he rubbed her back. "Alfred was a friend of my brother's. We're all very sorry for your loss."

"I-I-I just don't _understand!"_ Cathy sobbed into a packet of tissues, her eyes swollen from previous tears. "Who'd want to m-to _kill_ Alfred? He was always such a sweet _b-b-boy_ -" Her voice broke off in another sob as Beilschmidt continued rubbing her back, murmuring condolences.

"You were the one that found the body, correct?" another officer asked Derek Jones, whose bruise-colored circles resembled his son's from the night before.

"I…I, that's right, yes." he murmured distractedly, rubbing his forehead as if someone had physically struck him. "He-he was on the ground, under the dresser drawer we have by the mirror."

" _By_ the mirror?" the officer asked sharply, and Derek made a helpless motion with one hand. "We keep it right up against the mirror, its saves space. I'm sorry –I don't see why that matters."

"We have to have a detailed knowledge of the crime scene." the officer replied in an absent mutter, scratching something out on his notepad. Derek nodded helplessly, running a hand through his dark brown hair.

"I just –do you have any suspects. Any leads? Any _anything_?" he asked desperately, and the officer looked up.

"Forensics ruled out accident, sir, and that's all we have been able to confirm." he replied quietly. "Please be patient."

Meanwhile, a sleek black car was purring its way along the suburban roads, swinging onto the crowded street where the Jones family lived. The speakers inside rumbled softly, but with all the windows closed, the only discernible sound was pumping bass and a male voice. It came to a halt well beyond the police cars and barricade, sliding in close to the curb and coming to a halt as the engine went silent. The side door popped open, letting out a brief snatch of music.

" _I-ya, I against I, flesh of my flesh and mind of my mind, two of a kind but one won't survive-"_

A pale hand closed around the top of the door and snapped it shut, cutting off the music as the owner –a rather handsome young man– raised a cigarette to his lips and surveyed the scene. His fair golden hair was chopped short and spiky around his face, and his eyes were a focused, clear green. He was dressed in a light, neck-to-ankle black coat with a high collar, which covered a brown suit, all slightly shabby. He ran his fingers down to his hip, where there several small rectangular bulges, and flicked out his cigarette, crushing it under his heel and starting forward. One of the officers at the barricade soon spotted his approach and stepped forward.

"I'm sorry sir, you can't enter this area."

"I live here." the blonde replied with a noticeable British accent, his expression flat. "And besides that-" He reached inside the pocket of his coat and pulled out what looked to be a wallet, and flicked it open, revealing multiple cards. He pulled one out and handed it to the man. "-I'm cleared for crime scene observation."

" _Arthur Kirkland. British-licensed private investigator_." the other man read off, sounding slightly surprised, before looking up with an unreadable expression. "You said you live here?"

" _Lived_ , if we're going to be technical. I was the adopted son. You may check the town records for that." the now-named Arthur replied with a slight edge to his voice. "You may also check the flight list of my plane, the airport cameras, and the word of credit of every man and woman at my place of business, all of which will testify I was in England during the time of the murder. Now, may I enter into my own home and confront the fact my little brother was murdered in cold blood, or shall we continue to delay here?"

He cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side as he spread his arms sardonically, as if waiting for the officer to take the latter option. When he did not respond, Arthur nodded curtly to him and ducked under the yellow tape, striding across the yard to the house. He spotted the sobbing Mrs. Jones and changed course to her, watching as she looked up at his footsteps and sobbed even louder, reaching out for him. All the aggressiveness went out of Arthur's body, and he practically fell into her arms, wrapping her in a fierce hug. "Mum."

"Arthur, oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" she sobbed, clutching his back as fresh tears poured down her face. Arthur heaved in a deep, choking breath, but he did not cry.

"It's alright mum, it's alright. We're going to find out who did this." he said in a strangled voice, then looked up at a familiar voice in the distance, seeing Officer Beilschmidt debating quietly with another officer. "Is that Ludwig?"

Cathy sniffled. "Yes. He, er, um, he offered to take the c-case…" Her voice broke again, and Arthur's face softened as he wrapped his arms tighter around her, then pulled away.

"I'll talk to him." he offered softly, before letting go of her and walking over to the two officers. "Ludwig? Ludwig Beilschmidt?" he asked briskly as he offered his hand, and the officer with the slicked-back blonde hair looked up.

"Arthur. I thought you were still in England." he said with some surprise, taking Arthur's hand and shaking it firmly. He'd heard about and seen group pictures with this man in them via Gilbert, who had known about him through Alfred. Ludwig's knowledge was roughly limited to Gilbert's brief spiel, when questioned, of " _Arthur Kirkland, Jones's adoptive brother. He's about four years older, moved back to England after college. He works as an author or whatever and does Sherlock Holmes-type shit on the side. Private eye, investigations, that sort of thing._ "

"I was. Mum called and I booked a flight immediately, you can check my alibi at your leisure." Arthur responded, and shifted slightly, looking over his shoulder at the house. "All I got from her was the fact that…Alfred was dead. Can you give me the details of the murder? Time of death, etc."

"Sure." Ludwig murmured, nodding dismissively to the other officer and heading towards the house as Arthur followed. "Alfred was alone in the house. Your parents were out having dinner together at Holland-Handers." Ludwig rattled off briskly, ducking under the police tape as Arthur followed. "There were no signs of forced entry, windows were still locked, doors bolted. It's an…unusual case, to say the least."

"Picking a lock doesn't always leave signs, and the killer could've always made or used a key. What's so unusual about it?" Arthur replied blankly, his formidable eyebrows knotted together.

"It's not so much that as it was the cause of death." Ludwig muttered, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. "Now, you haven't lived here for several years, correct?"

"Yes."

"That drawer, right next to the mirror. Did you ever move it?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Why?"

Ludwig finally twisted the knob. "Both of your parents swear as to the fact that they left the drawer right up against the mirror, same as when you lived here. However, the cause of death was from excessive head and body trauma, caused by said drawer."

The two blondes entered into the house, and Arthur closed his eyes briefly at the white outline on the floor, accompanied by several reddish-brown splatters on the carpet. Ludwig's eyes moved to him. "We can do this later, give you the reports-"

"It's fine." Arthur cut him off, breathing in deeply. "It's just…personal." His green eyes flickered as he remembered Ludwig's previous statement. "Wait a tic, you say he died because the cabinet fell on him?" he asked incredulously, looking at the officer as if he were insane. "That thing mustn't weigh more than twenty pounds."

Ludwig looked at him and then at the outline on the floor. "That's why it's an unusual case. This twenty-pound cabinet, if what you and your parents say is true, fell from less than an inch away from the wall with enough force to break bones and crack a human skull." he explained, taking off his hat to run his fingers through his gelled hair in frustration.

"But that's-"

" _Impossible_. I know. Hence our difficulties in solving the case." Ludwig said, deadpan, as he replaced his cap.

Arthur pursed his lips and reached inside a different pocket of his coat. "I'll take a look around, if you don't mind. I know my investigative license doesn't register in the states-"

Ludwig shook his head in the negative. "No, no, go on ahead. As long as you're under observation and don't disturb any of the evidence." he said, waving Arthur on.

Arthur nodded quietly, withdrawing a pair of thin leather gloves and sliding them on. "What happened to the cabinet?" he asked, kneeling down by the body outline.

"We took it back to evidence after forensics said they were done with it. They didn't find any wires or explosives or anything that could indicate how it flew off the wall so quickly." Ludwig said in reply, tapping his fingers against his folded arms.

"Any suspects?"

"None. Time of death was estimated to be between eight-thirty to nine in the evening, and so far all of Alfred's family and acquaintances are accounted for during that time. There's video evidence of your parents at the diner roughly up until 9.34 PM, and you of course were in England –I'll confirm that with the airport. Alfred's college roommate was at a meeting for amateur game designers. His two other friends –one of whom is my brother, by the way– were last seen in the Boundary Waters and are both camping at least three days away from any kind of vehicle transportation. There's no footprints anywhere in the yard or garden, and as I said before, no evidence of forced entry."

"Hmm." Arthur replied absently, shuffling slightly as he leaned closer to the mirror. This had really been the first time in his memory he had seen it without the drawers in front of it, and he ran his fingers along the smooth surface. A thin crack marred the lower half of the mirror, trailing down to a small spiderwebbed cluster about six inches above the bottom. Arthur reached inside his pocket and pulled out a magnifying glass, looking more closely at the cracks. The miniscule edges were smooth with no shreds of material, which indicated that they were old.

 _I had no idea we got this secondhand._ He thought with a click of his tongue, then wrinkled his nose and sniffed. Something smelled…off. Like the dirt in a garden, only…mustier, and faint. It was almost imperceptible due to the equally intangible scent of iron still lingering in the air, from what Arthur didn't want to dwell on. "Did we have a plant in here?" he asked aloud, and Ludwig blinked.

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"…nothing." Arthur muttered, biting the edge of his lip. _I wonder…_

He reached inside of his coat and pulled out a small white candle and packet of matches. He placed the candle in front of the mirror and scraped the match against the edge of his shoe, lighting the wick and then blowing out the match.

"What on _earth_ are you doing?" he heard the officer mutter from behind him, and Arthur shrugged his slightly bony shoulders.

"Just a little superstition of mine. It won't affect anything." he said blandly, waiting until it had burned for several seconds before upending the candle and letting the liquid wax dribble out onto the carpet in front of the mirror. He then put the slightly-burned candle into his pocket once more. "I'll be heading up to Alfred's room now, if you don't mind."

Ludwig trailed after Arthur as he ascended the stairs, entering into Alfred's blue-painted room. "Any signs of disturbance up here?" Arthur asked, looking around the perpetually messy floor. Shirts and socks were strewn everywhere on the floor, although Alfred had somehow managed to group all the junk food wrappers and cartons by his overflowing garbage can. The walls were liberally pasted with Marvel and DC heroes –some of which Alfred had retained since elementary school. In short, it appeared more or less like any other superhero-enthused college boy's room.

"None that we can tell." Ludwig said in exasperation, probably due to the clutter that prevented them from finding out, and paused as there was a buzz from his radio. He turned his head and squeezed the rectangular device on his shoulder. "Beilschmidt here. Is there a problem?" he asked, and there was a crackle.

" _The mother and father of the deceased are becoming hysterical. Permission to take them back to the station with us, sir?_ "

"Copy that. Ah –permission denied; we need them on scene in case further evidence arises." Ludwig said briskly, and the officer on the other end shuffled anxiously.

" _Sir, they're –they're really not coping well_." they said nervously, and the faint sound of shrieking and sobbing filtered through the speakers as Ludwig made a face and Arthur shifted in concern.

"Copy that. I'll be down shortly." Ludwig said with a weary sigh, then jabbed a stern finger at Arthur. "You, Kirkland. If you're staying here, don't touch or move anything."

"Sir yes sir." Arthur said sardonically, raising his hands as if he were being held at gunpoint. His forest green eyes traced Ludwig as he clomped out of the room, and then he lowered his hands again as the door creaked shut. He waited until the sound of the retreating cop's footsteps were echoing in the stairwell before quickly striding over to the door and locking it with a _click_ , then turned back to Alfred's room and closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply. He hadn't seen the bespectacled blonde in ages, but he _had_ grown up with him. He knew how Alfred thought, where he'd be most likely to hide something precious to him. The somewhere in question, Alfred's nightstand, third drawer down, false bottom. The younger blonde never stopped prattling about it when they were little, how cool it was to have gotten a secret extra space for hiding things in the secondhand drawer his parents had bought.

Kneeling down, he quickly opened the drawer and hooked his finger into the small crevice on the right-hand side, lifting up the paper-thin slat of wood and grinning in triumph. A small leather-bound book was resting inside the secret compartment, and he paused before removing it, making sure that there was no dust or other clues to disturb when he did so. While he was eager to get his hands on some proper documentation, he would never be so eager as to destroy potentially vital evidence in his foster-brother's murder case.

Satisfied that there was no such thing, he quickly snatched the journal out of the compartment, replaced the bottom, and eased the drawer shut, coming to his feet as he slid the small book into one of his coat's many inner pockets. He methodically scanned over the rest of the room, but no matter how minutely he looked, it seemed as if there was absolutely nothing out of place. Pushing back his sleeve, he noted that almost twenty minutes had gone by, and decided that it was more than time to go back downstairs.

As he strode down the creaky wooden steps, Arthur chewed minutely on his lower lip, making quick calculations in his head as he mentally eyed his checkbook. Given as his house was now a crime scene, he had doubted that he'd be able to stay the night here and had already booked a room in one of the cheap motels nearby. He could probably move back into his old room after a few weeks, when the police cleared the house for residence. Being both an amateur detective and author, he was able to live comfortably, but certainly nowhere near the realms of lavishly, and he preferred saving money whenever possible.

 _Perhaps Bel can give me a discount for eating out at her diner._

Coming into the living room, Arthur paused, then after looking around cautiously, moved towards the small puddle of wax he had left on the carpet, pulling out a small digital camera. He knelt down, quickly snapping a picture, before tucking the camera deep into his coat and standing up again. His rather bushy eyebrows knotted together in alarm as he stared down at the dried wax, curling his fingers around the white stub in his pocket.

The puddle of wax had turned pitch-black.

 _ **7.06 PM, USA Central Time**_


	3. Food for Thought

**_So the below quote is paraphrased from_ **_Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos_ _, **which is a fantastic book (and series) that I highly recommend, which refers to and relies heavily on Egyptian magic and superstitions. The main character, Theodosia, is the clever daughter of the owner of the second-largest museum in Britain and his adventurous American wife, who brings back plenty of artifacts. The problem is that Theo is the only one in the museum who can detect and counter all the heavy, dark-magic curses that have been laid on the multiple artifacts her parents own in the museum and are continually bringing back from Egypt to make new exhibi**_ ** _ts with, and her problems are further multiplied by the fact that, although she's the only one who knows and believes in them, these curses are both willing and able to work on everyone else in the museum –even on one rather memorable occasion, her beloved cat, Isis. It's a lovely series full of tongue-in-cheek snark and high adventure and curses and greedy secret societies and protective secret societies and exotic travels and all the rest of it. I seem to have spent most of my author's note extolling the virtues of another fictional work and have no more room left to talk, so please just enjoy the chapter below._**

 ** _January 25th, 2017_**

* * *

 _Wax is very good at absorbing_ heka _, or evil magic. It turns blackish-green in the presence of evil._

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

 _Evidence :_

 _Drawer flew from less than an inch away from a solid surface_

 _Scent of must and earth (grave dirt?)_

 _Blackened wax_

 _Likely/Possible Culprit(s) :_

 _Angry Spirit_

 _Curse_

 _Ghost_

 _Tommyknocker_

 _Motive :_

 _Happy family (bitter over the living/good?)_

 _Alfred blundered onto something nasty_

Arthur chewed on the end of his fountain pen pensively, the sunlight glimmering through the window of the diner and falling across the pages of his casebook. He sighed and ran a hand through his spiky, tousled blonde hair in frustration, laying down the pen. "Bollocks." he muttered under his breath, blowing out another frustrated sigh. It was all very well and good to assume that something on the other side of the veil had been involved with Alfred's death, but it was rather difficult to find out _what_ and _why_ , and even more difficult to prove it. He had to eliminate all possible options before he tried to confront –something– in a battle royal.

The problem with that was that Arthur was little more than an amateur when it came to magic and the supernatural. He knew the rough mechanics of many things, and he'd tried a few successful spells and hexes of his own (mostly geared towards protection of himself and others, and once, a drowsing spell that had led him and the police to an arsonist), but that was about it. He'd never had anything approaching an official tutor and what little he knew was cobbled from the few fragments of true magical spells he could find, all included in his own personal grimoire. The fact that he actually _needed_ a grimoire was proof enough that he would never be a great magician –not that Arthur precisely cared. Much like modern-day swordplay, true magic was very much a niche market that was of very little practical use in day-to-day life.

"Here's some Darjeeling and a slice of apple pie, on the house~! Artie, you should have told me you were in town!"

His thoughts interrupted, Arthur jumped slightly as an enamel plate was suddenly put down on the table in front of him, accompanying a steaming mug of tea. His forest green eyes slowly traveled up the slender, pale arm holding the plate to find a puffy white sleeve, which led to a frothy shirt covered by a thin-strapped black dress, which hugged ample curves tightly before letting out at the waist, billowing around shapely legs. A black ribbon tied in a bow behind her ears, holding back short, slightly curvy strawberry-blonde locks. Eyes as green as his own sparkled in a friendly manner, and a catlike smile curved her pink lips. Arthur gave a slightly sad smile in response. "Hello there, luv."

Bel beamed and leaned down to hug him, and he wrapped an arm loosely around her shoulders in return and squeezed, pressing his face against her strawberry-scented hair. The waitress and him had enjoyed a –brief– affair after highschool as boyfriend and girlfriend, which had been cut short by Arthur's return to England. It had ended on surprisingly friendly terms, and Arthur often got long, chatty emails from Bel that kept him updated on the various incidents involving Holland-Handers and his hometown. He in return sometimes sent her fragments of the books he was attempting to write.

"I'm sorry about Alfred." Bel said seriously as they separated, and Arthur gave a weary shrug.

"We'll find out who did it." he replied, taking some cream from the condiment tree in the middle of the table and pouring it into his tea. "The police always do."

Bel's eyes sparkled as she flicked the edge of the menu in her hand back up against her shoulder. "Oh, that's right! You're a private investigator now. How's that?" she asked as she slid into the chair opposite him and laid the menu back down.

"Stunningly dull." Arthur replied crisply, taking an experimental sip of his tea. "Very few people have problems so serious they don't take to the police –and even fewer of them go to amateurs like me to solve them."

Bel poured sympathetically. "Well, you're doing alright anyways. How long until you hop back over the pond?"

Arthur took a bite of the pie, and chewed thoroughly before responding. Holland-Handers had a reputation for the best apple pies in town for a reason. "After the funeral, at the earliest." he replied, flipping his casebook shut. There was no reason to go shouting his suspicions to the world, after all, especially when belief in the supernatural nowadays often got one a nice padded room and an off-white straightjacket.

He saw Bel's eyes flicker towards the movement, but she made no comment. They raised to his own, and she gave a sad, fond little smile. "I won't tell anyone anything, Arthur." she said softly, placing her hand atop his own, resting on the casebook. "You can trust me."

Arthur's lips curved upward in a brief smile of his own, and then he slid both his hand and the casebook away from her. "I know, luv. But there are some things rambling about in my mind, when I work certain cases, that make me seem a complete nutter."

One of Bel's perfectly plucked eyebrows rose upwards. "Oh. Are you still messing around with that supernatural mumbo jumbo?" she asked matter-of-factly, and Arthur just about spat out his tea. He'd nearly forgotten about that one time where Bel had approached him about the herbs he'd stuffed under her eaves and demanded an explanation, to which he, red-faced, stammered out that he was a bit of an occultist and that they were designed for protection, health, and good luck. He vaguely remembered that she had beamed and told him it was incredibly sweet for him to worry about her like that, which was followed by some rather…adult rated activities.

"Ah…yes." he said, placing the cup back on the napkin –he briefly mourned the lack of saucers– with his cheeks slightly tinted pink. "Yes I am."

He glanced around the diner briefly. This time of the afternoon, there was almost no one inside –the reason why Bel was able to sit and chat with him for so long and not need to attend to her duties as a waitress. The head cook, Francis, as he remembered, was quite lenient with her and the other waitresses' time, as long as they were not actively eating into the profits. He locked eyes with her again and leaned inward, lowering his voice. "And I think…I think there might have been something at Alfred's crime scene."

Bel's eyes brightened with avid curiosity, and she leaned forward as well. "What?" she whispered back, and Arthur bit the inside of his cheek.

"Well, that's the problem." he admitted. "In this day and age, grimoires and bestiaries aren't exactly two a tenner. But I know there was something evil there. I smelled what I'm fairly certain was dirt where no dirt should be, chiefly in our living room; the murder scene. The candle wax I spilled there turned black –which candle wax tends to do in the presence of a malicious magical creature or being. The set of drawers that killed him moved from less than an inch away from a solid wall, with enough force to break bones."

"That _does_ sound fishy." Bel whispered conspiratorially, her eyebrows furrowing above her narrowed eyes.

Arthur nodded. "The trouble is, without knowing exactly what I'm dealing with, there's no way a novice like me could throw myself into a general _magna exilium_ without cocking everything up." he grouched with a heavy sigh, leaning back to run his fingers through his bangs and tug irritably.

Bel raised her eyebrow in silent question.

"A banishment ritual." Arthur clarified, still frowning heavily in concentration through his fingers. "It's guaranteed to remove all sorts of nasty buggers, but only if it's done exactly right. Knowing what I'm dealing with is a big component, since I, as an amateur, can't just push my way through it with sheer bloody force."

"Hm. Well, if you need anything, you know where I am." Bel said briskly, favoring him with a bright smile before coming to her feet. "Do you need a place to stay for the night? My door is always open."

Arthur gave a short laugh. "Thanks luv, but I'm not as unprepared as all that." he told her with a grin, raising his cup to her. "I've already got a motel room, complete with moldy paper and creaky bedsprings."

Bel laughed with him, then bade him a short farewell and went to attend to some newly-arrived customers as Arthur stared at his casebook, sipping his tea musingly.

 _***Time Skip***_

Arthur had spent most of the rest of the day going around town, re-familiarizing himself with the sights and streets. It'd been three years since he'd last prowled the area, and the knowledge of where everything was almost always turned out to be vital in a case. He could probably have gotten away with going straight back to his rooms, since he was a semi-native of the area anyways, but it never hurt to refresh his memory –especially when he was involved in such a personal case.

September was only the very cusp of becoming October, so the trees were already blazing, phoenix-like, with fall colors, and the air was crisp, growing chilly as night approached –Arthur would be very glad of his long black coat before the day was out.

He smiled as he sauntered along the narrow, slanted streets of the oldest part of town, spotting the bakery that had been there time-out-of-mind, with several sets of twisted-iron chairs and small café tables placed outside on the pavement, the better to serve customers. He remembered the many occasions when he and Alfred had been taken here by their parents, and how disproportionately heavy those delicate-looking chairs were; every time he and Alfred tried to shift them, they'd had to pull with all their might as the legs screeched demonically on the concrete. He also remembered how vexing the lacework on the café tables was when one was eating one of the bakery's signature professionally-iced hard cookies, how the wasted crumbs would fall right through the scrolling vines and leaves, only to be snatched up by a sparrow or pigeon.

He sauntered on, crossing the old railroad tracks and into the outdoor art park that snaked alongside them for a little while. This tiny park, barely a block long, was ever-changing, with the new artwork from the students of the district constantly replacing the old, but there were a few constant landmarks; the giant, blue-painted ironwork horse, for one, and the disproportionately huge lawn chairs positioned to watch the tracks. There was the arbor, and the optical-illusion-slats that always had a tiger painted on one side and a jungle painted on the other, so the image would change as you walked along it. There was the painted wooden crosspiece that for the life of him Arthur could never find a purpose for, but children loved climbing all over and hiding inside.

He glanced at his watch and sighed as he went back to his car, which he had parked there earlier in the afternoon. He would have to hurry to make it back to his motel in time to unpack before supper with his parents. The book in his pocket seemed to burn against his skin, demanding to be read, as he unlocked the door and put the keys in the ignition, but he reined himself in with a sharp exercise of will. He would have patience. If he went too hastily, he could very well muff up the entire investigation.

 _***Time Skip***_

Dinner had been…tense, to say the least. As soon as Arthur had walked in the door of Applebee's his mother had been all over him, sobbing, as if she was afraid that he would have been mugged or murdered during his jaunt about town. His father had been white to the lips, and only spoke in terse, clipped sentences, accompanied by little jerks of his head and twitches of his fingers. Alfred's loss loomed too large in their minds for any of them to make idle conversation, and the wound of his death was still too new, too raw, for them to speak of. There were a few muttered attempts at conversation, about Arthur's occupation, his life in Britain, the tentative questions drifting into the stale air like fragments of ash.

Is it good to be back home? Yes, I suppose it was. You always did like your native country better than here.

Private investigator? How was that going? Not well? Oh. Oh well, then. Paying the bills?

Oh yes, yes of course, another job. That makes sense, you've always been so clever. What kind of job?

Oh, an author, well that's, that's just lovely. Making a lot? No? The two jobs are just keeping you stable?

Well that's just wonderful.

Arthur hated the bland, boring conversation, hated the clipped, choreographed questions as he and his parents danced around the fact that there was one empty spot at the table, one voice that was not heard among them. He had never been terribly close to any of his brief succession of foster parents before he had been dropped with the Jones', and even with them, he had always been a slightly distant child.

He'd always assumed it was because of his upbringing; the son of two up-and-coming medical professionals didn't exactly get a lot of attention and love. He'd barely even known his birth parents. Once he was old enough to cook and not drown himself in the bathtub, they'd more or less abandoned him to the tender mercies of a series of nannies, daycares, and other relatives. His uncles on both sides of the family, Allistor, Seamus, and Dylan, were absolute tossers, and he'd avoided them as much as possible growing up. The only person he'd found even mildly tolerable in his entire extended family was his cousin, Oliver –he was Dylan's son, and four years younger than Arthur. Briefly he had wondered what his cousin was up to now, then shrugged. Oliver had always given him a ring when he was worried about something, but he hadn't called in years. Arthur assumed he had sorted himself out in school; the poor chap was always a bit of a worrier.

After a while, excuses were made and an exit was planned. Arthur pried himself out of the maternal embrace and slunk to his car, waiting until he had gotten out of the parking lot and onto the road before letting out a long sigh of relief. Grief that had purposefully been muted, dulled, and repressed, the better to study the case, had reared its ugly head during dinner as his parents quite obviously mourned and avoided mentioning Alfred, and his hands tightened on the wheel as he drove. There was a gnawing feeling inside of his chest, a feeling of emptiness, pain, and loss.

Alfred was gone.

Forever.

Arthur had to pull over or slow down several times on the way back to the motel to blink tears out of his eyes or wipe them on his sleeve, and he arrived at the dusty, mildewed building with reddened eyes and a gloomy heart. He parked the car he had rented, trudged through the unassuming lobby –like a thousand of its kind; tatty furniture, bowl of mints on the check-in desk, newspapers and magazines on the coffee tables, the musty, astringent smell of carpeting in the air, dull wallpaper– and down the hall into his room. He collapsed on the bed –creaky bedsprings, just like he'd told Bel– and let out a long, suffering moan into the thin pillow. His foster brother had meant a lot more to him than any of his adult caretakers, and now he had to face the fact that he was gone, gone forever.

Well, unless he used necromancy, but that was a road best left untraveled.

After a few moments, Arthur slowly pulled himself up on his elbows and grit his teeth. Crying into the sheets like a child wouldn't do him or anyone else one blind bit of good. He had to pull himself together if he was ever going to find Alfred's killer. He rolled over and reached inside his pocket, turning on the bedside lamp in the same movement. He scooted himself backwards until he was up against the backboard, pulling out and opening up the leather-bound book he had found in Alfred's drawer.

 _One, this is totally not a diary. It is a very masculine journal._

Arthur raised a single eyebrow. _My God, was he that insecure over it?_ He thought dryly, before his bushy eyebrows knotted. Why would Alfred have kept a dai –a _journal_ , if he disliked the idea so much?

 _Hi to anyone that picks this up, by the way, my name is Alfred F. Jones. I'm a freshman in college on a football scholarship and I plan to be a lawyer. (Boring I know, but, like, justice and saving people's lives, dude. Being a cop takes too much energy anyways, and they don't let you eat as much McDonald's.)_

 _If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you're either a nasty snoop, or I'm dead. If you're snooping around and I'm still alive, then get your nose outta my journal and hit the road._

Arthur's fingers tightened around the edges of the book excitedly. This was turning out to be a windfall of epic proportions! Something, somehow, somewhere, had tipped Alfred off to the possibility that he might die soon –a possibility that, unfortunately, soon became reality.

Now all Arthur had to do was figure out what it was and suss it out of its hiding place.

 _If I'm dead under…strange circumstances…then this journal might give you clues. I…I'm having a hard time figuring out what's real and what's not anymore, so I'm putting everything in here so that if I survive this than maybe I can look back and make some sense outta it. Or if I don't survive this, maybe someone else can for me. Lookin' at you, Arthur, because what's been happening to me seems like it'd be right up your alley, and you're a terrible snoop anyways._

Arthur snorted indignantly.

 _Plus you've got mad detective skills._

 _Anyway, if I'm not battier than a bowl of Count Chocula, here are three things for anyone trying to solve this after me. You need to play by these rules. _

_1\. Avoid reflective surfaces at all costs. _

_2\. Whatever you do, don't break a mirror or anything else reflective._

 _3\. It never comes when there's company. DO NOT stay alone._

 _ **7.24 PM, USA Central Time**_


	4. Write-Off

_**Hello friends, here is a friendly reminder that reviews fuel my soul and would greatly encourage me to keep writing on this story. Also, constructive criticism is equally greatly appreciated, although if the criticism is not constructive it will be promptly ignored and slightly ridiculed to friends and family. Uh, this is usually where I answer any reader questions or discuss reader opinions, but since nobody's given me any of those I guess I'll just start the chapter now. I also discuss important notes about the below chapter in my usual author's notes, but since I don't have any of those here either I guess I'll just shut up.**_

 _ **January 29, 2017**_

* * *

 _Solomon Grundy,  
_ _Born on a Monday,  
_ _Christened on Tuesday,  
_ _Married on Wednesday,  
_ _Took ill on Thursday,  
_ _Grew worse on Friday,  
_ _Died on Saturday,  
_ _Buried on Sunday,  
_ _That was the end,  
_ _Of Solomon Grundy._

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

 _Day One_

 _Uh, well…I guess I should begin at the beginning, then. The stuff that's been happening has happened real slow, so I'm not exactly sure when and where stuff started to happened. I wasn't really paying attention, 'cause, I mean, why should I? I lose my stuff all the time, doesn't mean that I'm being haunted or somethin'. _

_I suppose my first real big clue that something was up was yesterday morning, when I found the head of one of my disposable razors embedded in the bathroom wall. Hey, shut up! I told you, I lose stuff all the time! I didn't think it was anything when I lost that razor!_

 _But, I mean, I guess it's pretty hard to explain away the fact that the aforementioned razor had somehow broken in half, and that the sharp shiny part had ended up cracking premium high-grade white-granite tile. Like, I know I'm strong, but I ain't strong enough to break a razor and ricochet the head off into the wall. Plus if I did that while shaving, I'm pretty sure I'd have a scar big enough to put the Joker to shame. (Ouch. My poor babyish cheeks.)_

 _Uh, but anyway. Broken razor in the bathroom wall. I managed to pry it out with a butter knife from the kitchen, and then I dropped it in the trash and pretty much forgot about it until today. I mean, what's one weird instance amongst the busy life of Alfred F. Jones?_

 _That's sarcasm there. That was a very, very important instance, as I found out today, when my toothbrush was halfway buried into the wood of my bathroom drawer. I actually kinda kicked myself, since I realized I'd broken Rule #4 of the Horror Movie Rules of Survival. (See below)_

 _1\. Thou shalt not investigate strange noises._

 _2\. Thou shalt not present thy back to the open air when hiding._

 _3\. Thou shalt not turn around suddenly (or otherwise) when thou hears/sees/senses something behind you._

 _4\. Thou shalt not dismiss strange occurrences as commonplace._

 _5\. Thou shalt not do the nasty onscreen, nor shalt thou drink or do drugs, for then thine ass is royally screwed._

 _6\. If thou art in a place of safety, then thou shalt fucking stay there, unless thou art alone._

 _7\. Thou shalt not go anywhere by thyself, for then thou art even more royally screwed than if thou hast done the nasty._

 _8\. If there ist a kooky old person, then thou shalt listen to them, for they know a lot better than thee._

 _9\. Thou shalt heed creepy warnings, especially if they rhyme and art carved in stone._

 _10\. If thou thinkest the monster ist gone, it ain't._

 _Those aren't all of them (and I didn't include all the subclauses and articles) but those are the most important ones. Imma gonna start following them for sure from now on, so hopefully I'll be able to get out on the other side of this, you know, alive. I also bought and started writing in this journal, because hey, that's another trope point for me to live._

 _Day Eight_

 _Welp, big pat on the back for Alfred F. Jones. I know my eyesight's bad n' all, especially early in the morning when I don't really bother with my glasses, but I just about gave myself a heart attack earlier when I was passing the mirror on my way to the shower and suddenly realized my shadow was behind me rather than on the ground where it belonged. I made a very manly sound of fright and dived for good ol' Texas, but when I finally jammed 'em on my nose I didn't see anything but me, stark naked and shaking. The Jones Dignity had another nice big chip knocked out of it, surpassed only by The Thanksgiving Cranberry Incident, Of Which Alfred Jones Most Certainly Knows Nothing About And Was Nowhere Near The Crockpot At The Time, Thank You Very Much._

 _Past humiliations aside, I got cold standing there starkers (as Artie would say) and jumped in the shower. I kept one eye peeled for anything weird the whole time, which is not comfortable when shampooing, lemme tell ya. (The "no-tear" label on the bottle? It lies.)_

 _Not to fall into the trap of #4 again, but maybe I'm just, like, imagining things…?_

 _Day Seventeen_

 _Nope nope nope nope nope nope, abort mission, I repeat, abort mission. I am not imagining things. Also, my apologies to anyone else who might read this about my handwriting for this entry, it's really hard to write while being legally blind and holding an ice pack to your glasses-less face. (Also, ouch.) I mean, I know people joke about dying via textbook, but I never thought it'd be actually true. Damn you, _Beginner's Guide to Psychology _!_

 _I, uh, should probably actually say what happened. I'd been spending part of my summer vacation with Gilbert and Mattie, since we are bestie buddies, and we'd had the bright idea to hop over to Wisconsin and do some fishing. We caught some walleye, they were excessively gay and cuddly and schmoopy with each other, Gilbert was a dick and put worms down my shirt, the usual sort of thing with us. (I get that they're in a relationship, but do they have to be so gosh darn smug about it? I could be in a relationship too, if I wanted. Girls are not scared off by my "excessive love of superheroes", so there, you smug Germanic quasi-albino person.)_

 _Side note, I caught the biggest fish. Matthew says his was 1/6 of an inch bigger, but I measured and he's a liar. Gilbert flipped his shit when we were maturely debating this point like civilized adults and yelled at me for "trying to put his precious baby bird in a headlock", but clearly he has not faced off against Precious Baby Bird in hockey before, because Precious Baby Bird is a speed demon who will not only check you into the glass and then put you in a headlock, but knee you in the groin for good measure and then stand over your whimpering body and hold his stick high in victory and ululate like some kind of tribal cannibal._

 _(Not that I have had any experience of that.)_

 _Also since at the time of attempted headlock he was trying to throw me into the lake, I feel mostly justified and slightly victimized. How come his boyfriend always has to take his side? I'm outnumbered two to one, man. I pointed this out clearly and succinctly with my usual, gentle methods to Gilbert, who flipped his shit again and threw the frog that had somehow managed to get into his sleeping bag into the side of my tent. My glasses disappeared during the night and no matter what Mattie says I doubt that he mistook them for his and then accidentally dropped the bag into the water when we were heading out for the day._

 _We all came home smelling of weeds and lake mud, and split for our homes with cheery threats of dismemberment and death should we catch each other on each other's property anytime soon. (Well, Gilbert and Matthew said it to each other, but with they way they were looking at each other I think the death would be more of the little French kind rather than the disembowlment kind. Yuck.)_

 _Anyway, I jogged up the stairs in search of a shower and some comic books, and opened my door to the sight of one of my elective course books hovering about the table. I blinked twice and was just ready to start off with an exclamation something along the lines of "What in the name of Superman's spandex?!", when the levitating book shot forward and slammed into my face._

 _I then woke up a few hours later with a throbbing skull, a bloodied lip, and Abraham Maslow's laminated face blocking my vision. I promptly chucked the book away from me and regretted the movement forthwith, groaning and almost clutching my face as various bruises made themselves abundantly known. I was lucky Texas hadn't shattered. It had cracked, but aside from two beautiful black eyes, a busted lip, and a cut forehead from where Laminated Death had left its ghostly brand, I was otherwise unharmed._

 _Also aside from the fact I'm being friggin' haunted._

 _It's beyond obvious at this point, obviously, that the book did levitate and did fly at me with malicious intent, ergo, I'm moving past denial and into panic. Hence panic. Hence bad handwriting. Hence bad grammar. Hence Artie killing me if he ever discovers this for maiming the great and holy English language with my illiterate peasant-hands._

Arthur _was_ scowling ferociously at this point and reaching for a pen, but he checked himself grudgingly. _Later_. He promised himself.

 _And I honestly don't know what to do. I won't lie, I thought that maybe a vacation with Gil and Mattie would distract me and calm me down n' stuff, make this all go away like a bad dream, but now I'm back and it's back and I just don't friggin' know what to do._ _I've been seeing these dark flickers of movement behind me in mirrors and glass, but I don't even know if that's real or if it's just me._

 _Day Eighteen_

 _Kay, so maybe if I call Artie now, and just get it over with? I mean, I looked under my bed and there's the kooky pentacle thing he drew out, and maybe I scratched it a bit deeper into the floorboards just in case, and maybe I checked out the old plants he stuffed in the roof and tried to find out which types they were on trusty ol' Google. And maybe I didn't find anything because they were so old and black and dead. And maybe I panicked more._

 _Day Nineteen_

 _Right, so Google says good protection plants are fennel, holly dragon's blood, birch, clove, ivy, rue and mullein. Whatever the hell those are. I'm off to Paul's Garden to buy myself some security._

 _Assistant at Paul's said that it was the wrong season for most of those and they didn't carry the rest. FML. Wondering if I can order them online?_

 _Day Twenty_

 _Shipping takes two business weeks for anything that's not a seed. Maybe I can jog over to Kiku's and he'll have something on the list, since he's from Japan and they have all sorts of kooky plants there?_

 _Ha! High score! He had some fennel and told me what a birch tree looks like, and I harvested some bark on the way home! Guess what's going in the eaves tonight, Mr./Mrs. Creepy Invisible Thing! Your ass is history! I can't believe I actually figured it out by myself without Arthur helping me! Haha! I knew becoming a lawyer was the right path for me, I'm a genius!_

 _Day Twenty-One_

 _Not good. When I checked the plants and bark this morning, it was all rotten and dead. I ain't much of a gardener, but I know that leaves and stalks aren't supposed to wither that fast, and bark takes years to turn back to dirt. Maybe it isn't checkmate yet, you Creepy Thing you. _

_I'm still gonna get some more leaves n' stuff from Keeks. Maybe this was like a last desperate effort, and the Thingy is all out of helpful-plant-destroying juice now? And if nothing else, this has told me that the plants would/do help, because otherwise the Thingy wouldn't have nuked 'em._

 _Alright, so I got twice as much as last time and stuffed it into the rain gutter and under the roof tiles and everything else. Let's see your moves, Creepy Thingy._

 _Day Twenty-Two_

 _I checked the plant stuff, and it was still good. Hah! I am a genius!_

 _Imma still gonna get a few more bunches from Kiku, just in case. Some of the leaves looked a bit too moldy from just one night's exposure._

 _Day Twenty-Nine_

 _Things were going great until today. I hadn't seen any flickers behind me for a week and the plants were still planty whenever I checked._

 _Key word being "were"._

 _I checked offhandedly this morning and a lot of the fennel was brown and crumbly, and the birch bark was all flaky and rotten. Shit shit shit shit. Maybe I'm dealing with some kind of adaptive Creepy Thingy here and the constant exposure to the plants is just making it stronger and more immune to them. But if that's the case, what the hell do I do?!_

 _Maybe it's time for that call to Artie. This is his sort of thing. I won't chicken out of it this time. I won't chicken out of it this time._

 _Day Thirty_

 _I chickened out. Again. Gosh darn it, this is one of the most deadly tropes out there! (Thou shalt call for help, even if it seems stupidly mundane when thou wishes to call, for then thou must do it anyways because it be even more urgent.)_

 _I'm such a moron. I'm such a moron._

 _But I can't help it! Arthur probably doesn't even have his phone with him and I don't know what time it is over in England, and I-_

 _I just don't know. I'm scared. I keep seeing things from the corner of my eye and I'm scared._

 _Thirty-One_

 _Kiku went back to campus today and I don't have the key to his house so that means no more fennel for me. I practically skinned the birch trees around the house and then dove onto my bed and curled up in a ball and waited for everything to just go away. Didn't work. Thought I heard weird sounds, not sure._

 _Day Thirty Two_

 _I went out with Gil and Mattie today. Nothing else happened when I was with them and I honest-to-god begged to stay over at Mattie's house for the night. I forget what excuse I used, but he seemed okay with me as long as I didn't sabotage anything. I'm on his couch now and hopefully settling down for the first safe sleep in a month._

 _Day Thirty-Three_

 _Praise Matthew Williams and all of his maple-mad family to the heavens above for all of time and space! I slept like a two-ton lead log all night long, without waking up to weird whispery sounds just out of the range of my hearing or faint thuds and bumps from somewhere in the basement or attic. So help me I will get Mattie the coolest, the best, the most holy of holy hockey things this side of planet earth. The first stick, the puck that won that one miracle on ice or whatever, a solid gold helmet, whatever the heck it is, I'll get it for him!_

 _We hung out some more today. He and Gilbert are planning another trip, but up north by the Boundary Waters. I tried not to show how nervous I was when they made cow eyes at each other and mumbled about it being a couple's trip. I don't know if Mattie will trust me with the keys to his house when he leaves and if I have to go back home anytime soon then I swear I'm gonna put an ax through my head._

 _Day Thirty-Five_

 _Williams you blessed human being, you actually did trust me with your house keys! I swear I'll never put anything gross in your food again! (Seriously though, I'm surprised Mattie ever notices. The dude pours syrup in his coffee cup. Sometimes I wonder whether or not he'll sneeze out maple leaves, that guy's so Canadian.) Also, I wandered around his house and found this old stuffed polar bear that I gave him for like his fifth birthday and he used to carry around 24/7. Aw, I didn't know he kept that!_

 _He also put it on the shelf above his bed. I wonder what those poor little glass eyes have seen. (Stay strong, little guy, stay strong!)_

 _Also there's a lot of sappy pictures of Gilbert, and Gilbert and him, and a few stunning polaroids of all three of us in our usual awesome fashion. There's our seventh-grade Halloween picture with me in all my cool and sexy glory! I dyed my hair black for the exact occasion, and I even wore these neat icy contacts to make my eyes really pop. (Arthur helped me with making the cool demon tail and horns.) Everyone says it was the scariest they'd ever seen me! Gilbert joined in the theme and was rocking this red hoodie and pitchfork combo, and Mattie had this white coat and syringe and was a freakishly creepy mad doctor. (Not like the "Gyahaha chop kill murder!" kind but more like the "You have been deemed physically defective, but don't worry, because I can fix that~" kind.) _

_Gosh I love my friends. (At the risk of becoming sappy.) I still hope a squirrel pees on Gilbert's head for him suggesting the trip for just the two of them, since it's a lot harder for me to distract myself all by my lonesome, but really I couldn't wish for better bestest buddies._

 _Day Thirty-Six_

 _Scratch my previous statement about a squirrel befouling Gilbert's platinum Germanic head. I hope a moose runs that motherfucker over. (Not that any of them would betray the unholy blood-pact of alliance that they forged with their human counterpart, Mattie, but a dude can hope.)_

 _The Thingy somehow tracked me here. I know because one of the Williams family butter knives lifted off the counter when I was making myself lunch and nearly got me through the chest before I dodged, and it scratched my shoulder up pretty bad anyways –which, since it was a blunt knife, hurt like a motherfucker. I panicked and booked it out of the house like a bat out of hell (cool analogy I picked up from Artie), running to the car and gunning it to the hospital, where I was assured that it wasn't even remotely fatal, and a lot of the looks I got from the attending doctors mutely implied that I was a moron for freaking out over such a little scratch._

 _Hoo boy, if they only knew what I was really freaked out about._

 _I got patched up and hung around at the old arcade for a while, wondering just what fuck I was supposed to do now. I mean, what if the Thingy was still back at Mattie's house? I couldn't go back there! What if it tried to kill me again! What if it didn't miss the next time?! I like being alive!_

 _But, I mean, what if it goes after Mattie and his family? Fuck, I can't let them get hurt just because of me! What if it goes after him and his family __and_ _Gilbert and then Gilbert's family too!? What sort of failure of a friend would I be then? I'd have led a murderous supernatural thingy right to them!_

 _Okay, okay, fuck, fuck. I'll just grab my stuff from the house and then go back home and dump a shitload of plants fucking everywhere._

 _Fuck. Being a hero is hard._

 _Fuck._

 _Day Thirty-Seven_

 _Um, welp, I fucked up again. See, I was walking by the hallway mirror and I saw this dark thing behind me and I automatically freaked out like any rational person and whipped around to look, but of fucking course there was nothing there, and then the next thing I brilliantly decided to do was smash the mirror. I managed to put a few cracks in it with my punch, but then I was flung down the hall forthwith and cracked the back of my head on the banister to the stairs. I woke up about four hours later with a throbbing skull and a permanent case of the shakies. The mirror was shattered into itty-bitty bite-sized shards and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of my punch. _

_Fuck, I'm never doing that again, ever._

 _Day Forty-Four_

 _This past week has been…uh, stressful. Thumps and bumps and all sorts of bad things. I'm planning on maybe going down and around and setting up cameras and motion sensors and shit so I can try to find out a little more about this. Humans can adapt, we're smart lil' monkeys and I ain't gonna cower in the dark any longer. And I swear, I am gonna call Artie tomorrow and tell him everything about everything. No two bones about it. Or three. Or four. Or any bones at all. I like mine where they are and in one piece, thank you very much. _

_Uh, so yeah. Mom and dad have been going out to work n' stuff and so have I, at the comic book store (all praise), but since I get home earlier than they do there's still a three-hour stint of me being alone in the house with something that wants me deader than dead. Which is Not Fun. _

_Speaking of, mom and dad are home now, so until later._

A single tear splashed onto the open page.

That had been Alfred's last entry.

Arthur then furiously scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his wrist, shaking his head angrily at himself. He should have known better than to emote all over crucial evidence, no matter what state of emotion he was in. He scrubbed a little at the watermark with the pad of his thumb, but it seemed entrenched.

Regardless, Alfred's journal had given him many vital pieces of information. As he had indeed assumed, albeit slightly too late, the creature dogging him must have been adaptive, to be able to withstand repeated and increased dosages of preventative herbs, which argued against it being a tommyknocker, which while occasionally aggressive, were usually easily repelled, dispelled, or encouraged to move on via such methods. Despite following Alfred from home to home, which was a likely point in favor of it being a curse preformed on the unsuspecting blonde, the intelligence the being displayed, assaulting Alfred while alone and never attacking him enough to persuade the blonde to seek help, was far more complicated than any mere curse a modern witch or magician could cast. Arthur was rather certain that even the older, greater sorcerous population couldn't cast curses that intelligent; much like modern computer programs, any curse that didn't immediately cause death or illness required extensive coding, planning, and encryption before it was released onto the subject.

So, not a curse _or_ a tommyknocker. Out of the most likely options available to him, his next working assumption was that the assassin was either an angry spirit or a malicious ghost, which, although theoretically identical to the common man, were in fact vastly different things. A _spirit_ was the semi-intelligent, ferociously angry remnants of an extremely ancient ghost and/or the more recent ghost of an animal, whereas a _ghost_ was the completely intelligent memory, personality, and severed life-force of a dead human. Most of the working theories Arthur had heard (and subscribed to) declared that ghosts were the souls of people who, for whatever reason, had refused to move into the afterlife properly, and that spirits were the fragments of emotion and memory that they left behind when they finally _did_.

Now, finding out which one of the two was responsible for Alfred's death would be very important here. If it was a spirit, it should be easily dispelled by the proper ritual procedures, since there was little to no intelligence left that was capable of being conversed with, cajoled, or bribed. If it were a ghost, Arthur's position would become rather more tenuous, since while ghosts were just as intelligent as the living and therefore could be reasoned with, they were also just as emotional, unpredictable, and highly tempered –and if it was indeed a ghost, this one had already proved itself capable of murder. His last course of action (should negotiation fail) would be to destroy it, and it would involve finding or digging up the corpse and then destroying it, which would dispel the ghost and force it into the afterlife, whether it wanted to go or not.

Arthur sighed, closed the journal, and put it on the bedside table. He would need to do some serious research and plotting before he could lay out something to trap a spirit or ghost –he was reasonably certain that it would be a spirit. Ghosts were more or less the same as living humans; they needed a _motive_ , they didn't just go around killing people willy-nilly, and Alfred had done nothing to anyone living _or_ dead that would cause them to wish for his demise. Spirits, on the other hand, were so mentally degraded and had so many negative fragments of memory and emotion that they often, when they were able, lashed out at whatever living person was nearest, attaching the negative memories, emotions, and feelings of enmity to the most convenient outlet. Some of the writers in the few genuine grimoires Arthur had come across theorized that spirits were not even conscious that the person they were attacking _wasn't_ the original source for their hatred and grief.

Right bloody tragic, that.

 _ **7.44 PM, USA Central Time**_


	5. Shattered Assumptions

_**Woohoo! A nice new person reviewed! Thank you** Chameleon Incognito **, I greatly appreciate it. Also, might I ask how my story is different than the generic Hetalia fanfic? It seemed fairly standard to me. Then again, I usually frequent much darker fandoms than this (Higurashi/When They Cry and Hellsing Ultimate, anyone?), which is probably the reason two out of my three Hetalia stories involve the 2ps. I can enjoy the slapstick-y and the lightness and the constant lowbrow humor (which is why I'm a fan of Hetalia in the first place), but I ain't so good at writing it myself. *sigh* Oh well. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses with such things.**_ ** _And hey_ **_FallenwaterTheFallen_ ** _, nice to see you again! Sorry about the character death, but it was right there in the summary so I feel slightly less guilty about such things. Oh, also, by the way, all the flower language and symbolism below is true according to Wikipedia (dubious source, I know). I can't help but love flower language, I mean, you can passive-aggressively say "fuck you" with a PLANT! How rad is that?!_**

* * *

 _A drum, a drum!_

 _Macbeth doth come!_

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

The first thing wrong about the funeral was the fact that the sky was achingly, emptily, mockingly blue. According to every story ever told, it should have been overcast, pouring rain, drenching the host of black-clad mourners as they gathered around the sullen stone tombstones, and it should have been wretchedly uncomfortable to so much as _exist_ outside the general radius of an umbrella or roof.

Arthur reflected bitterly, as he listened to the priest drone on and on and felt the sap from the stems of the cypress bouquet that lay in his lap gradually seep out over his fingers, that very rarely did reality mimic fantasy.

Although there were sobbing friends and family aplenty, the sky was as bright and blue as the clearest of sunny summer days, and only the not-so-faint chill in the air and the fiery colors of the autumn leaves revealed that it was, in fact, the beginning edge of October. The endless, somber rows of grey-white tombstones, littered with flags and flowers, seemed almost cheerful against the dank, withered, brownish-green grass and the long, silent row of gleaming black cars. He shifted uncomfortably and subtly tugged at his his hot, itchy sleeves –in the shade it was chilly, but in direct sunlight, it was warm enough to be uncomfortable, especially if one was wearing black.

To distract himself, Arthur turned his head a little to gaze out over the crowd. As a direct (well, adopted, but that was a technicality) relative to the deceased, he was in the very front row, along with his parents, a little to the left of the coffin and the orating priest. He glanced across the aisle formed by chairs to the front right, seeing Alfred's closest friends –Matthew Williams, Gilbert Beilschmidt, and Kiku Honda– arranged in a corresponding fashion to Arthur himself as well as Cathy and Derek Jones. He knew that Bel was just a seat behind him, her waitress's uniform traded out for a khaki safari jacket and pants that he vaguely remembered had been a gift from her brother, and he could recognize a few other faces that he spotted in the crowd.

Francis, the cook from Holland-Handers who made such good apple pies and pastries (not that Arthur would ever say as much to his petty froggy face) was a few seats back and across from Bel; Arthur remembered the longstanding rivalry the two of them shared, and privately resolved to avoid the flamboyant blonde when the service finished. He spotted Ludwig farther off in the right-hand section, his blonde eyebrows knitted together in concentration as his icy blue eyes roamed the crowd. Knowing him, he was probably still in his "case mentality" and was actively searching for clues or suspects. Arthur wished him luck, but he doubted even the ultra-efficient Beilschmidt would be of much use on this particular case. He knew that many murderers attended the funerals of their victims, or some such faradiddle, but somehow he doubted it in this particular case.

Arthur actually was somewhat surprised by the turnout for Alfred's funeral; nearly everyone between his and Alfred's age had turned out to fill the rows. He even spotted Elizabeth Héderváry, the town librarian, with her head bowed and shoulders shaking, in one of the seats near the back. She'd only ever been a casual friend of the family, after Arthur's countless visits to the library in search of decent reading material, often accompanied by Al.

He faced the front once more and twisted the bouquet in his lap again, remembering what the star-shaped flowers represented.

 _Death, mourning, despair, and sorrow._

Arthur pressed his lips together tightly and swallowed his tears. He knew Alfred would probably have wanted something less somber for his funeral –hell, the excitable young man probably wouldn't have wanted something so glum to be held in his honor in the first place– but Arthur couldn't help himself all the same. Funerals were held for the living, and not the deceased; unless they had been horribly wronged, not even those who lingered after death, ghosts, cared about what happened to their physical shell –their use of it had already ended.

The thought of ghosts made his eyes go out of focus once more as he ran over his plans for that evening. The police had finished with the Jones household, so he'd taken his old room across the hall from Alfred's. He was sleeping on a futon, granted, and he was sharing the space with over two dozen cardboard boxes, but it was still _his_ old room, so at least he had a little privacy. He'd already purchased the necessary herbs –unlike Alfred, he knew how to get a steady supply of anything he might need– and drawn the necessary matrix on the ground, in washable paint, of course. He somehow doubted that his parents would understand that no, it was not devil worship (it was, in point of fact, the exact opposite), and more practically for him, he might need the space for a different kind of matrix later. He planned on starting the ritual at midnight, which despite the cliche was actually a time when the barrier between this world and the next thinned, much similar to noon. Arthur figured that the reason 12.00 at night had a more sinister reputation than 12.00 during the day because human imagination, such as it was, was highly stimulated by the dark.

He'd have _liked_ to have done the ritual on an equinox or a solstice, or any one of the greater seasonal pagan holidays, since the natural rhythms of the unnatural world ramped up on those days and a lot more ambient power was available to him, but Mabon (the autumn equinox) had been two weeks ago, and the next nearest one was Samhain, commonly known as All Hallows' Eve or Halloween. He'd had to wait the whole month through for that, and Arthur didn't like the idea of sitting on his thumbs doing nothing for so long, even if it was one of the four greater sabbaths and the one traditionally dedicated to the dead.

(Plus the fact that the _actual_ pagan holiday only occurred from sunset on the 31st to sunset on the first of November meant that he would have a _highly_ wonky slot of time to work with. Attempting to see the holiday through would put his already skewed sleeping patterns all out of whack.)

Arthur was abruptly snapped back into reality by the movement of his parents at his side, and hurriedly stood with them, swiftly brushing down the front of his suit jacket. As the closest relatives of the deceased, they were the first to lay down their flowers, and he twisted the stems of his bouquet a little more, trying to straighten them.

Pale as it was, Arthur still had no difficulty in recognizing Alfred's face –the mortuary people had done a good job, he had to give them that. Replicas of Alfred's thin, blue, rectangular glasses sat atop his nose, and his eyes had been closed, as if to mimic sleep. Thin stitches that were nearly invisible against Alfred's golden skin trained back from under his chin and ear, showing where they had pieced his skull and skin back together, and his hands were clasped peacefully over his forever-still chest, covered by a custom suit Cathy and Derek had ordered especially for the occasion.

Arthur's trained and practiced green eyes, however, could still pick out little clues, hints that Alfred's death had not been quite as peaceful as the mortuary people and the funeral home wanted to simulate for a grieving family. Parts of his arms subtly sagged or were angled, proof of broken bones, and Arthur could see that some of the fingers on Alfred's left hand had to have been twisted back into place. And no amount of makeup, fluids, or any of the other embalming techniques and tricks that the mortuary assistants knew had been able to wipe away the faint look of terror on Alfred's still, marble-like face.

The spiky-haired Brit waited for his parents to finish their weeping, laments, and goodbyes, then silently stepped forward. "It's okay, Alfred." he whispered to his brother, in the faint but persistent hope that he still lingered. He laid the cypress bouquet over Alfred's interlaced fingers, alongside his parents' enormous, extravagant bouquets of red dahlias. "I'll find out who did this."

He silently stepped back with his parents to let others pay their respects, and flowers piled up inside the velvet-lined coffin, a rainbow of colors, and despite himself Arthur named the emotion each and every one of them was meant to convey, even while he knew that not many bothered to learn the language of flowers these days and the meanings therefore were not truly intended.

Matthew. Purple crocuses. _Youthful joy, love, abuse not._

Gilbert. White edelweiss. _Rugged purity, noble courage, and mountaineering_.

Kiku. Marigolds, yellow and orange and gold. _Pain and grief._

Bel. Blue irises. _Good news._

Francis. Bluish-purple hyacinths. _Spring and rebirth_.

Ludwig. Mauve carnations. _Dreams of fantasy_.

Elizabeth. Orange lilies. _Desire, passion, and hatred_.

Arthur quickly dashed a tear from the corner of his eye with a wrist. The consolations and commiserations would soon be upon them, and he needed to keep a stiff upper lip for his parents. He would not weep. He would not cry. He would not blubber. Alfred deserved tears, yes, but Arthur had already shed his, and he needed to keep his eyes firmly fixed on his goals. He was going to confront a spirit this very night and needed to have all his wits about him, not become a sniffling, sobbing, _emotional_ mess. Magic responded to emotion, after all, and he still really was just a mere novice. He needed to be _strong_. He needed to be in control.

Bel sidled up to him almost as soon as she had laid her flowers down, sliding her hand into his and guiding him a little distance away from his grieving parents. "I'm guessing you don't want to talk right now." she said quietly, and he threw her a silent, grateful look. A quick flicker of a smile swept across her face, and she squeezed his hand silently. Arthur returned the squeeze, then sighed, turning his head to look out across the long rows of headstones.

"I'm planning on tackling the spirit tonight." he told her under his breath –his parents, as well as a knot of similarly grieving people, were not four meters away. Bel took the hint and edged closer to him, laying her head against his shoulder as if consoling him or being consoled herself.

"Do you need any help?" she asked bravely, and he shook his head just barely.

"No need, luv. Even a novice like me can take care of a mere spirit all by myself –they're barely clinging onto existence as is." he said confidently, and she hummed to herself.

"Already have everything you need?"

A small, confident smirk slid onto Arthur's lips. "Vervain, mint, and holly. Should be enough to take care of even the strongest spirit."

Bel's hand squeezed tightly around his. "Good luck." she wished him fervently, then lifted her head from his shoulder, taking a careful look around the densely populated cemetery. She gripped his hand tighter and leaned up, whispering against his ear for good measure. "What happens if you…if it doesn't work?"

"You may claim my remains in the morgue." Arthur replied with a weak attempt at humor, turning his head to smile at her –although it felt like more of a grimace. Bel's concerned green eyes blinked up at him, and his strained smile faded. "It'll be _alright_ , luv." he said firmly. "I know what I'm doing. And if I don't –well, if I don't, I've taken precautions, so I can leave everything in your capable hands without concern."

Bel raised an eyebrow, and he coughed and amended his statement. "Er, well, without _much_ concern."

She snorted quietly, and they both straightened at the soft rustle of footsteps sounded on the grass behind them. As Arthur half-turned, he saw Elizabeth approaching them, her face shadowed with sorrow.

"Arthur, I'm so sorry that this was how you first came back to visit us." she said sympathetically, and Arthur plastered what he hoped was a neutral expression across his face as he let go of Bel's hand and moved into the expected consoling embrace. It wasn't as if he didn't enjoy Elizabeth's company, quite the opposite; it was just that he had more important matters on his mind and didn't want to be constantly reminded of Alfred's demise by a horde of well-meaning but ultimately irritating sympathizers.

 _Oh well_. He internally sighed. _As needs must_.

 _***Time Skip***_

Arthur looked out the tiny window of his bedroom, watching Kathy and Derek's car pull down the driveway and purr off into the night. They had wanted to "spend a little more time" with Alfred –Arthur had refrained from pointing out that Alfred was dead and that his corpse was already buried in the ground, since their absence would give him –at the least– an hour and a half of uninterrupted time for his ritual. Knowing his parents, it would probably be closer to two or three.

Settling his shoulders back, he stepped away from the window and turned to face the rest of his room. The various stacks of cardboard boxes that had filled the space previous to his arrival had been pushed back against the walls, making room for the large pentagram laid out in white paint on the wooden floor. Luckily, the room was large enough that he hadn't had to shove his bed away from its corner, since the framework was cast iron and although Arthur kept himself in good shape, moving it would be far too draconian a task for his wiry body. A single lamp sat on one of the more substantial boxes, casting a hard-edged white and fluorescent glow over the room, the only real source of light besides the moon and streetlamps outside.

Various leaves and dried plants were scattered about between the white lines of paint, holly and vervain for protection and a truly overabundant amount of mint for cleansing. Arthur supposed laconically that he should have been more careful in specifying the quantity to his supplier –but it didn't much matter. In fact, the more the better for his purposes.

He walked across the room and sank down on his bed, crossing one leg over the other and pulling out his grimoire –a black leather-bound journal he had found several years ago at a yard sale. In it he detailed all of his magical methods, his knowledge, and logged his application thereof –a grimoire was the rough equivalent of both a self-gathered informational booklet, a recipe book, and a diary. Truly masterful magicians, according to the fragments of history Arthur knew, didn't need them, having completely memorized their spells, lore, and invocations, although some of them had still written down their uses of particular spells or potions in diary format. They also might sometimes publish spellbooks, but they never ever stooped to doing anything as basic as recording their knowledge of herbal lore –unless, of course, they were writing a book about it. Witches and warlocks, however, never wrote their knowledge down unless they could help it –they clasped their power close and almost never handed it down, not even to other coven members or apprentices.

The distinction between the two (three, technically), much like with spirits and ghosts, was important. Magician was a unisex term; it could apply to Arthur or, if she at some point decided to learn magic, Bel. Male, female, genderfluid or trans, it didn't matter; if you used magic, you were a magician. Witches and warlocks, however –well, they were another kettle of fish entirely. A _witch_ was a woman who used her magic for evil or for selfishly personal gain, and a _warlock_ was the same, just male. They were derogatory terms, not honorifics, and Arthur would have been outraged to have been called either.

Not that anyone he knew –except for Bel– even knew the concept of magic existed, but still.

Arthur uncapped his fountain pen with his teeth and started writing, carefully recording his plan of action and leaving a blank spot for any further notes –he had already recorded a drawing of the matrix he had used and a list of the plants that he had scattered about it. His "arrangements" in case of failure included a text that would be sent to Bel four hours after he began his ritual, indicating where and how his grimoire would be hidden, as well as precautions she should and would need to take to retrieve it from his house. He doubted that he would fail, but "pride goeth before the fall", and this was _not_ a situation in which he could make hubristic assumptions.

Finished writing, he waved the book up and down a little to help dry the ink, then closed it and buttoned the leather strap that held the journal shut. Pausing a moment to crumble some vervain over it and mutter under his breath, he shoved it inside his pillowcase and then stood, walking around the boxes to the nearest clear patch of floor that connected to the pentacle. Arthur rolled his shoulders a little once more and cracked his neck, trying to settle his thrumming nerves. He'd never done this before, and the stakes were rather high.

But there was no point in dillydallying.

Arthur stretched his hands out towards the lines of white paint, took a deep breath, and began to speak. "I invoke, conjure, and command thee, murderer of my brother by bond." he intoned, squeezing his eyes shut to better concentrate. "I invoke, conjure, and command thee, as a practitioner of the arcane arts. I invoke, conjure, and command thee to appear before my eyes in this circle, in your true form. So mote it be!"

He finished with a flourish, then sucked in a deep breath and waited, lowering his hands as his eyes darted here and there and everywhere around the room, watchful and high-strung.

He didn't have to wait long.

There were no puffs of smoke, claps of thunder, or gusts of unearthly wind, none of the theatrics that films and books insisted ghosts and spirits brought with them when they were summoned. Within one second and the next, the empty space in the pentacle was abruptly filled as a dark figure was suddenly _there_ , and the temperature of the room plummeted downward as Arthur, despite himself, flinched backward in shock. The appearance was so sudden it almost served to shock more effectively than any amount of special trappings or theatrical effects, the human mind belatedly attempting to reason with how a presence could so abruptly appear when no movement had been registered.

Despite Arthur's warm woolen mittens, and the same dark coat he had worn to the crime scene before, he was beginning to shiver after only a few seconds, his breath steaming in front of him as the temperature continued to drop. It was the chill of death, of the grave, a baleful cold that was almost malevolent in its icy intensity. He'd known about it, known that all ghosts and spirits had carried this unearthly cold with them –proof of their state of death, perhaps?– but _knowing_ and _experiencing_ , as he was swiftly discovering, were two very different things. He sharply brought his mind back into focus, and noticed several things in quick succession.

The spirit had good –excellent– memory.

Most spirits, since their memories were so degraded and worn, could barely hold together a semblance of human shape; a cutout shadow, a flicker of movement, or more rarely, faded or flickering or hazy mimicries of themselves at the point in life that they could best remember their own image.

This image –this man– was sharp. Clear. _Defined_.

Arthur's mind ramped up into overdrive as his eyes raked over the spirit, automatically classifying and memorizing its features as he would a victim's or suspect's, and the spirit watched him without moving or speaking. He was a young man –twenty three to twenty five, Arthur professionally estimated– with dusky brown skin and an athletic, highly toned frame. Arthur guessed that if they were standing several feet closer, the top of his head would come even with the spirit's eyes, so he put its height as around 5'10 or 5'11.

The spirit wore faded, patched jeans, still with the memory of dirt and oil (motor oil?) on them, and a dark, loose leather jacket with scuff marks on the elbows and wrists. Underneath the jacket he wore a slightly worn –but clean– white shirt, with a chain necklace holding two dog tags directly above his heart. A pair of black sunglasses were hung on the neck of the spirit's white shirt. His face was set in a disinterested yet mutely aggressive scowl, and a pair of startlingly bright, hellacious, burning crimson eyes gleamed out at Arthur from the spirit's face. A line of black metal studs marched along the curve of his left eyebrow, joined by snakebite piercings under his lower lip, a silver ring through his right nostril, and at least six rings and two studs in each ear.

The most shocking detail on Arthur's part came when he realized that the spirit's dark brunette hair was naturally parted in the same manner as Alfred's, even down to the same bouncy cowlick, and the spirit's features, although far more angled and with much of the baby fat lost, were similarly identical.

"Why do you look like Alfred?" Arthur blurted without thinking, and after a pause, the spirit's scowl gradually shifted into a smug, knowing grin.

"Ain't telling."

The blonde Brit added a faint Bronx accent with a deep, lazy voice to his mental notes on the spirit's description. He also noticed with some professional interest that the spirit's voice had a faint resonant quality, as if speaking from the bottom of a well or the inside of a cave.

"Why did you kill him, then?" he asked promptly, trying to regain mental mastery of the situation. He had called the spirit here and it had answered, which for the time being put it under his authority, which meant that it had to answer his questions with what little intelligence it still had left.

The spirit grinned and clicked its tongue against its teeth, and from the faint metallic sound it made, Arthur hazarded a guess that the spirit's tongue was pierced as well.

"Good question."

" _Answer_ it." Arthur demanded sharply, his hackles starting to rise. Spirits weren't supposed to have enough cognitive thought to be evasive. Just how powerful _was_ this one?

The spirit looked away from him as its face went blank again, slowly glancing around the room as it rocked back and forth on its heels. Then it looked at him again, and smirked lazily. "Mmm…how about _no_."

"Wh- you can't just _say_ that!" Arthur spluttered in indignation. He jabbed a finger at the matrix he had drawn on the floor. "You, spirit, must answer to my will!"

The spirit slowly flashed another grin, but this one was decidedly more predatory. "Oh, _must_ I?" it purred in a slow, dangerous voice, and there was a blur of movement as Arthur was suddenly slammed back against the wall of his bedroom and a translucent hand pinned him there by the neck.

As the piercingly cold grip closed around his throat and blazing red eyes bored into his own, Arthur realized two things in quick succession. The first thing was that this was a ghost, not a spirit, as evidenced by its ability to punch through his wards.

The second was that he had majorly, _majorly_ cocked things up.

 _ **3.43 PM, USA Central Time**_


	6. Night Driven

_**(** Rising from the Ashes YOLT **, is the story really that scary? I could do way worse.)**_ **Thanks for clarifying** _Chameleon Incognito_ **, and yes, most of the more minor characters will show up again. Some might even be important! (Though of course I will not tell you** _who_ _ **, because plot.)**_ _ **Also, fun and friendly fact, people (though this reminder is probably geared more towards those reading my other open stories), if I'm out for a while and then post a new chapter, I NEED REVIEWS ON THE NEW CHAPTER! I need confirmation that people are still thoroughly reading and enjoying (hopefully just as thoroughly) this story! If I post a chapter on a story that hasn't been updated since god-knows-when, I'm going to be looking very excitedly for the reviews on that chapter! If I get nothing, then I assume no one cared, and I lose a lot of motivation to post another chapter, i.e. the story getting put on the backburners whilst I concentrate on stuff that people "do" care about. I don't care if the review is as short and unspecific as "saw it, read it, liked it", it lets me know that you actually read the full chapter (and presumably the full story) and thus gives me a rough guesstimate of who's actually interested in what I'm writing. On this story, I don't have as much of a problem caring, A) because it's new and B) because you guys actually ARE reviewing mostly every chapter…or at least reviewing the same amount as the chapters currently out. You guys are cool. Hugs all around!**_ **  
**

 _ **April 30th, 2017**_

* * *

 _One for sorrow,_

 _Two for joy,_

 _Three for a girl,_

 _Four for a boy,_

 _Five for silver,_

 _Six for gold,_

 _Seven for a secret,_

 _Never to be told._

 _Eight for a wish,_

 _Nine for a kiss,_

 _Ten for a bird,_

 _You must not miss._

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

"Who are you?" Arthur whispered through numb lips.

The ghost sneered. "Who are you to summon me, eh?" he barked back, sending a wave of cold over Arthur's numb face. "You ain't got no business with me."

Despite the obvious danger of his position, Arthur could help but glare at the ghost. "My business with you is _life_ and _death!"_ he spat, kicking out –somewhat futilely, as his foot and leg went straight through the ghost's body without causing even a flicker. "Tell me why you murdered my brother! I know it was you; you're the one who appeared to those summons!"

The ghost grinned, and then closed his eyes to yawn exaggeratedly. "I don't don't see why I should." he drawled, before opening his eyes again, an arrogant twist to his lips. "What are you gonna do if I don't, huh?"

He squeezed Arthur's throat to drive the point home, his grin growing deadly.

Arthur swallowed hard, but despite stone-cold logic rambling in his ear, he was losing his temper. This…this _creature's_ lax attitude about Alfred's _murder_ angered him. "I'll send you to the light, that's what I'll do!" he snarled. "Or the dark, or limbo, or wherever else your rotten soul is destined to end up!"

To Arthur's surprise, the ghost shrugged nonchalantly and released him, taking a step back to slide his hands into his pockets and slouch before grinning down at the still-living blonde. "Eh, maybe I want to end up there and just can't make it on my own." he said airily. When Arthur's face reddened and he did not respond, the ghost's grin widened further. "Face it kiddo, you ain't got the juice to do me any serious harm."

Arthur ground his teeth and pointed at the pentacle on the floor once again. "Ghost, spirit, or red-eyed _freak_ , you have _still_ appeared to my summons and are thusly bound to my will." he hissed furiously. "So answer me! If you won't tell me why you killed him, then I command you, as holder of power arcane, _what was your name in life?!_ "

The ghost's demeanor shifted slightly. He seemed less inscrutable now, less calm, and he pressed his lips shut, like he didn't want to open them. Arthur noticed this and narrowed his eyes. "You are _bound_ to my _will_." he said roughly, his voice becoming slightly more even with his regained control. "You have appeared in this circle under your own free will and thusly placed yourself under my power! Answer me, now!"

The ghost seemed to struggle with himself for several moments before he blurted the answer out angrily.

"Allen Jones!"

The now-identified Allen glared ferociously at Arthur. "But you ain't gonna get any more from me, ya fucking limey!" he all but spat. "I ain't staying here another second longer!"

Without a flicker or a sound, he was gone again, and so was the piercing cold. Arthur was left slumped against the wall of his bedroom, five purpling bruises marked out against his throat, and a realization that things were most _positively, definitely_ not as simple as he had first assumed.

Before anything, he had to ward the house. That thought was clear in his head even as everything else was spinning into shocked and horrified chaos; he had to cleanse this place and bar the ghost from re-entering or re-materializing, or he and his parents wouldn't last the week. Matthew's house too; and Gilbert's, and anyone else's house that he suspected the ghost might have followed Alfred to. Oh, how could he have been so _stupid_ –the escalating amounts of telekinetic activity around Alfred was the ghost practicing his abilities to influence the corporeal plane, so that he would be ready and able to strike that one final, fatal, catastrophic blow.

Moving urgently but with the sense that he was just a passenger in his own body, Arthur yanked his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear, hitting Bel's speed dial with one gloved thumb as he began urgently rearranging the herbs on the floor.

" _Arthur?_ "

"Bel." Arthur knew she could hear his ragged breathing, but didn't bother to correct himself as he pulled out his Swiss Army knife and started scraping the paint off the floor in sharp, urgent swipes. "I was wrong. It's a ghost, not a spirit."

" _Oh. Difference being?_ "

"It's not an it. The ghost's a he –he's _sentient_. He called himself Allen Jones –is that name familiar?"

" _I'd say yeah, because of your family, but Jones isn't really on the "rare and unique" surname list, and I've never heard of anyone called Allen in your immediate family or the rest of the community. What's he look like?_ "

"Tall, fit, darkly tanned. Talks with a Bronx accent, not but not one strong enough to make him a native of that area. Brunette hair styled roughly the same way as Alfred's. Heavily pierced; eight or nine studs along the left eyebrow, snakebites under the lip, ring through right nostril, seven piercings in each ear, and probably a tongue piercing as well. Red eyes, but that's probably due to his state of being a restless spirit. Two dog tags on a chain necklace around his neck, but they didn't look like official military issue."

He heard Bel whistle in playful astonishment, perhaps sensing his shaken nerves and knowing the best way to distract him –deadpan humor. " _Wow, talk about fine detail. What about his clothes?_ "

"They're what he would've died in, which I'll admit probably won't very helpful for this particular case, since it looks like something causal, something he would've worn all the time. Scuffed leather jacket of no particular brand or style, left open and unzipped over a white shirt. The shirt's clearly old, but clean. A pair of old jeans with dirt and some kind of oil on them, which I'm guessing is motor oil, if only because it seems to fit his type. He also has a pair of sunglasses on the neck of his shirt, although he may have worn them normally most of the time."

" _Doesn't sound like anyone I know…or, uh, **knew** , I guess. Ned might know someone like that from work, but other than that…_"

Arthur vaguely remembered meeting Bel's older brother a few months after they had begun dating; he was a doctor at the local hospital, and unlike his expressive and sprightly younger sister, he never showed emotion unless he could help it. That and an unhealthy (and somewhat neurotic) obsession with cleanliness was really the only lasting impression Ned had left on him –as well as a threat that if he mistreated Bel, Ned "knew ten ways to dismember a man and twice as many to make sure he was fully conscious while it happened, as well as over a hundred ways to make sure the remains were never found, so watch it".

Arthur knew that Bel had made it understood that she and himself parted on good terms, so he felt reasonably safe in the assumption that he wasn't going to wake up strapped down to a bleached metal table with the deadpan Ned holding one of his ultra-sanitized scalpels in one hand and a bar of soap in the other.

(Probably. With Ned, one never knew what he was thinking.)

Bel's point was that as Ned might've seen Allen in surgery, or on some other kind of medical complaint –and not that Arthur liked to ascribe to stereotypes, but with Allen's excess of facial metal and overly aggressive demeanor, the likelihood of the ghost having darkened the door of the ER at some point in life was probably quite large indeed.

"If you could check with him, that'd be smashing. I'll look into the old town records –death certificates, missing persons reports, public records, bits and bobs like that. We'll see if we can suss something out between the two of us." Arthur rattled off as he stood, having gotten most of the paint off the floor. "I need to let you go now, luv, I have to ward our house before he comes back."

" _Oh my god, yes! I forgot about that! Here, I'll just hang up. Meet you in the library tomorrow?_ "

"Around noon would be good –no, sorry, fourteen hundred, I forgot about the lunch rush. See you then."

" _Good luck!"_

Arthur turned his phone off even as he was shoving it into his pocket again, and reached for the can of white spraypaint atop one of the nearby cardboard boxes. He foresaw a very long night ahead of him indeed, since not only did he have to ward his own home, but he would also have to somehow find a way to get all the way across town without being seen (as he would look intensely suspicious lugging a duffle bag even if it was only full of herbs), infiltrate the Beilschmidt's and the Williams' gardens/homes, and spray a similar symbol and dump similar herbs someplace where they would not be discovered, but was still within the parameters of the property.

He would _definitely_ need some caffeine on the way out.

 _***Time Skip***_

Arthur tapped his fingers in a nervous tattoo against the edge of his steering wheel as his car purred along the street, sneaking side glances towards the inconspicuous duffle bag that had formerly held much of his luggage. In all technicality, he didn't _need_ the painted symbol to remain on whatever he painted, but it _did_ strengthen the spell, and at this point Arthur was even less unwilling to take chances than he had been before. He'd frantically leafed through his grimoire, spat out the required spell, and snatched a can of one of Alfred's disgusting energy drinks on his way out the door within ten minutes of his encounter with Allen –he had no idea how fast the ghost could move or how familiar he was with Matthew and Gilbert's homes. Every second might be precious. Leaving a note on the fridge explaining his absence to his parents (he "needed some space"), he'd pulled his car out of the driveway and was so flustered that he'd actually cruised on the left side of the road for a few moments before remembering that he was no longer in England and hastily adjusting his course.

 _How to do this…how to do this…_

Parking his car in the street by the house might seem inconspicuous enough, but people were more observant than novels often gave them credit for. An unfamiliar car parked in the street for an abnormally long time was incongruous and worthy of comment –especially considering that a police officer lived on the block, in the case of the Beilschmidts. While Arthur's intentions were as pure as the driven snow, he _was_ part of a murder investigation, and lurking around the homes of various involved parties wouldn't exactly paint him in a good light…especially since he'd be able to offer no (believable) excuse for his behavior. He wouldn't do anyone, least of all himself, a blind bit of good if he ended up locked inside a jail cell.

There was a park a few blocks from the Beilschmidts' house, if he remembered correctly; he could stash his car there, and then creep back to the yard, paint the sigil, lay down the herbs, and go home whistling. Well, after dosing the Williams' home as well, but he was a bit more relaxed about that, since none of Matthew's family were known to be police officers (or indeed anyone else who could misinterpret his noble and protective gesture and thusly get in the way of the whole investigation).

Without further ado, he swung his car onto the county road and hit the accelerator. He had a long night ahead of him, and the more quickly he could get things done, the more fragments of sleep he'd be able to snatch.

 _***Time Skip***_

The full moon hung low in the heavens, as if pressed down by secrets, shedding its pale glow across the night landscape and gilding every edge with silver. The air was cold and crisp, and every exhale sent luminescent clouds curling and billowing into the inky blackness, like pale shrouds that fairies might use to wrap themselves in whilst they danced a mortal to their doom.

A dark figure skimmed across the not-quite-frosted glass silently, their face little more than a glimmer in the darkness. They ghosted around fences and over lawns, moving furtively, as if they wished to remain unobserved. Climbing lightly over a garden shed and preparing to slide down into a garden that was groomed with mathematical precision, the figure paused –froze, in fact– as a low canine growl rumbled up from the porch at the back of the house. Arthur closed his green eyes and silently but fervently mouthed a curse.

Oh bugger it all, he forgot the Beilschmidts owned dogs.

He pulled his legs back up onto the roof of the garden shed and smiled winningly, or as winningly as he could manage as he saw one, two, three canine silhouettes peel off from the dark mass of the porch and trot towards him. There was a Golden Retriever, a German Shepard, and a Dachshund, and not one of them looked pleased to see him. "There there, chaps. I'm here to help." Arthur muttered around a strained smile, though not with much conviction that it would work.

Surprise surprise, not one of the dogs moved.

As Arthur made an abortive movement to slide further back on the roof, the Retriever's hackles rose as its lips peeled back in a warning, not-quite-silent growl, and the blonde Brit froze correspondingly as a string of fervent curses rattled through his head. It seemed as if he was stuck in this position until the dogs either gave up and padded away, or they roused the Beilschmidt household to investigate their barking. Either option was untenable; his hamstrings were already starting to ache with the strain of keeping himself in this half-leaning, half-crouched position, and heaven only knew what Ludwig would have to say if he caught Arthur slinking about his back garden in the middle of the night.

The dogs did know him though, vaguely, and Arthur swallowed hard as a madcap notion filtered into his brain. These animals were only reacting to an intruder, a stranger, after all, just like they had probably been trained to do…but what would they do upon encountering a familiar, neutral (and/or friendly) scent, one that they had encountered before?

Being a private investigator, Arthur knew a little bit about guard dogs and how far and flexible their training went. These were house dogs, too, pets, who wouldn't have been trained to maul every unfamiliar person they came across in a certain territory –the Beilschmidt home– at a certain time. _Logically_ , if they could catch a strong whiff of his familiar, unaggressive scent, they would recognize it –and him by extension– as nonthreatening, and go about their business.

The problem was that to give them a strong whiff of his scent, Arthur would have put his hand, or his arm, or some other part of his body, within range of their teeth.

Which was _not_ a comfortable concept.

The green-eyed man swallowed hard. "There there, lads, don't you remember me?" he said softly, gingerly shuffling his legs forward until he could sit on the edge of the shed's roof. "It's Arthur, Arthur Kirkland. I've come 'round before, ages and ages ago."

None of the canines moved, except to lower their ears. Heart in his mouth, Arthur slowly placed his hands palm-down on the rough-tiled roof and slid his hips forward, lowering himself legs-first into the Beilschmidt's yard, all the while keeping up a soothing, semi-breathless litany of "Good boys, good lads…that's it, I'm here to help…that's the ticket…"

All three of the dogs were as still as if they had been carved from stone. Arthur's left foot touched the grass, then his right, slowly taking the weight of his entire body as his feet pressed down against the cold-hardened earth and he untwisted his arms from behind him.

Still no movement. Arthur lowered his arms to his side and adjusted the strap of his duffel bag with one hand.

The blonde Brit gradually went down on one knee as the Shepard and the Retriever backed away a little, no longer growling, but still with ears lowered and teeth bared. Slowly, Arthur extended his hand towards the hackle-raised trio of canines. "Come now, chaps, don't you remember me?" he asked softly, his nerves drawn as tight as the strings of a violin, waiting for either a relaxation of the tension in the dogs' bodies or a searing burst of agony as three sets of teeth sank down on his unprotected flesh.

The Dachshund was the first to respond, taking a slow step forward and leaning towards Arthur's bare fingers. It sniffed at them delicately as, despite his best intentions, Arthur involuntarily twitched, his unprotected digits curling inwards towards his palm just barely. The Dachshund leaned forward and –licked gently at Arthur's pinky and ring finger. A relived _whoosh_ of breath left Arthur's lips, and he gingerly reached up to fondle the hound's ears. "That's it, good boy." he whispered, and the German Shepard, seeing that its companion was receiving kindly human attention, shoved its nose under Arthur's other palm to prompt more of the same. Soon Arthur was alternating between all three of the dogs, struggling not to laugh as the Golden Retriever nearly bowled him over, wagging its tail rapidly and giving small, enthusiastic yips.

He managed to disentangle himself after a few moments, murmuring to the dogs soothingly and patting their heads. "Now lads, you're all brave, fierce guard dogs, but I'm going to need to approach your master's house. Is that okay?" He took a few steps closer to the house as the dogs moved with him in a small swirling knot, nudging against his knees and ankles. Though Arthur was hoping against hope, as he expected, when he drew closer and yet closer to the Beilschmidt house, the dogs began to rumble low in their collective throats –however familiar his scent was, the training for guard dogs was most stringent on the fact that none but the members of the household should approach the house, _especially_ not after dark.

He knelt, petting and soothing and murmuring, coaxing the dogs to relax once again before he shuffled closer on his knees, less than twelve feet from the porch now. The beginnings of a plan were becoming to coalesce in his mind, and he ignored the frozen chill of the grass biting into his knees as he slowly pulled the can of white spraypaint from the bag on his shoulder. As he had suspected, the dogs had made –or been provided with– a small square cutout den underneath the porch, to lie under during the hot summer days. As Arthur shuffled towards it at an _agonizingly_ slow pace, quietly reassuring the dogs with every other movement of his knees, his mind clinically took notes of how safe it would be as a hiding place for his sigil –if _only_ he could manage to convince the dogs he meant little enough harm that they'd allow him into their very own den.

Animals were _supposedly_ sympathetic to magicians, but in Arthur's entire (though somewhat limited) career, he had never had a chance to prove or test that fact. Apparently something about magic lingered in scent form on a magician's body, or they carried an aura that animals could feel, similar to the way that they were commonly sensitive to the presence of a ghost or some other supernatural creature. Arthur personally subscribed to the latter version, since animals were also reputedly aggressive towards witches and warlocks, and they used the same sources of magic as Arthur himself did –they just used it in different ways.

Perhaps it was that scent –or that aura– that kept the dogs from savaging him as he slung the duffel bag onto the ground, laying himself down –wincing at the cold chill of the ground, and the frost that would probably melt under his warmth and body heat– and starting to shimmy himself backwards through the square opening. Perhaps it was because they were just confused about what on earth the semi-familiar-human-who-pets-nicely-and-visits-late-at-night was doing.

But regardless, Arthur's luck held, and he put his arm over his nose and mouth, holding the spraycan up to the wooden underside of the porch as he began to spray a hexagram on it in white paint. He squinted his eyes against the chemicals, mumbling the incantation as best he could through his sleeve. He just prayed that this would hold against Allen –if he did, indeed, intend to attack this house. He also hoped, as he reached back out and dragged his bag into arm's reach and started stuffing herbs into whatever cracks and crannies he could find, that they would _also_ be enough to ward the ghost off.

The least he could do was make sure that this murder spree only claimed one victim.

 _ **2.19 PM, USA Central Time**_


	7. Literary Fruit

_**For those who wonder why I'm so consistently updating this particular story and nothing else, this is the only story that I have intricately planed out from, like. Beginning to end. It's something I can get out of the way quickly (even) with my stellar (lack of) time management. Unlike the T saga (the stories with Aryana Thompson), A Sun Never Set, and, um, Scrap (which if I'm entirely honest I honestly don't even have the motivation to work on anymore), which all either have too many sequels (Aryana and her stories) or I just haven't really figured out where I want to go with it –in other words, how the story ends. And you love dogs,** Rising from the ashes YOLT **? I'm way more of a cat person myself…as can probably be assumed from my penname. Oh, fun FYI, the library in this chapter is actually a real library in my hometown that I visit frequently. I was actually just going there with my sister to turn in some books when I was writing this chapter, and just for funsies I actually went and looked for the reference sections and/or the public records myself. Sadly, we don't have anything but a book of tax records, so I had to use a bit of artistic license regarding Arthur's research –but otherwise everything about that library is absolutely 100% true. (We also don't have APH Hungary as a librarian, sorry.) In personal news, I'm graduating from high school day after tomorrow! Yay! How the time flies…I think it's best to commemorate this monumentous milestone of my life with a chapter on fanfiction. Don't you?**_

 _ **June 7th, 2017**_

* * *

 _Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism._

* * *

 _3_ _rd_ _Person POV:_

 **Beep.**

 **Beep.**

 **Beep.**

One stone-heavy eyelid slowly dragged itself up over one forest green eye, and Arthur groaned quietly. His throat was sore and tender where the bruises were, and his whole body ached from the cold that had bit into his nerves in his nighttime rambling. The chill that he'd taken from the same had had him shivering under his bedclothes even after he'd taken a scalding hot shower –sometime around 3 AM– and stumbled back to his room. On the whole, everything that he'd experienced last night, and early this morning, in his efforts to protect the Williams and Beilschmidt homes from the ghost had left him severely disinclined to crawl his way out of his nice, warm duvet.

The Beilschmidt house had been the worst though; he'd snuck into the Williams' backyard fairly easily and managed to paint and lay down herbs on the roof of an old shed that they presumably used for storing hockey equipment, since a hockey stick and a cardboard box labeled LAST YEAR'S EQUIP. were leaned and/or pressed against the grimy glass window. Unfortunately on the way back, he'd scraped his side with an ungraceful shove through a broken bit of fencing, barked his knuckles on an unwieldy bit of timber, and nearly froze to death waiting for some pedestrians to pass by the street he'd parked his car on.

Arthur may only be 23, but he was far too old for this kind of twaddle.

 **Beep.**

 **Beep.**

 **Beep.**

The blonde Brit turned a vexed look upon the monotonously chiming alarm, but it did not heed the silent threat, and kept beeping away. Arthur groaned with feeling, drawing one weary hand over his face as he slammed the silence button with the none-too-gentle fist of the other. Sliding his socks-clad feet onto the cold wooden floor, he laboriously slouched upright, shuffling out of his bedroom and eventually towards the bathroom at the end of the upstairs hallway –again. Once there, he made a face at his reflection –the beginning edge of a five o'clock shadow and deep purple circles under his eyes gave a painful reminder of the many hours he had spent scrambling places no adult should have to scramble, hours when he _should_ have been asleep.

He then yawned. He'd told Bel to meet him at the library at 2.00 PM, American time, which left him with about three hours to remember how to function as one of the living and perhaps grab a bite to eat, as well as something with heavy amounts of caffeine. Tea was probably in order. A _great quantity_ of tea.

Arthur smiled briefly before the effort became too great for his weary brain and muscles. Then again, when was tea _not_ in order?

As he began brushing his teeth, the blonde Brit's mind began to turn to Allen Jones –whoever or whatever he had been. His novelist's mind immediately formulated the worst backstory it could; he was a cousin of the same Jones family that had adopted Arthur, from an abused background, come to get jealous repayment for Alfred's happy childhood; no, worse, he was a long-lost brother after Alfred's spot as the favored son –or, yes, more terrible still!– the legitimate father of Alfred.

Yes…most ghosts didn't age past their death, so Allen technically could've died at almost any post-modern time, so he could've been Cathy's first husband, whom she and Derek had gotten rid of to –gasp!– hide their adulterous affair. They would've poisoned him, or some such, and then burned –no, no, that would've dismissed his ghost– they would have _drowned_ the corpse to hide it, hung stones about its neck and flung it into the Mississippi at its deepest and broadest point. Allen had then returned, determined to wreak his terrible vengeance on his unfaithful wife by stealing away her beloved son and taking him to join his father in the afterlife.

Arthur snorted quietly at himself, and spat out his mouthful of toothpaste foam. Not _bloody_ likely –the age gap between Alfred and his mother and Allen was all wrong, even if Allen had died many years ago. Besides, such sensational things only happened in cheap, over-dramatized novels and fairy tales –neither of which had any place in real life, and doubly so not in a murder investigation.

(Even if the culprit _was_ a ghost.)

He absentmindedly hummed the theme of _Ghostbusters_ under his breath as he began shaving –Alfred had, of course, forced a swordpoint viewing of it and every other American cult movie ever played on Arthur at some or another point during their mutual childhood (as well as anything to come out of DC or Marvel), and though he would never, ever, under torture or threat of death, admit that he had actually _enjoyed_ some of them, he had, and there was a sort of twisted irony to this tune at the moment.

 _If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!_

 _I ain't afraid of no ghost…_

 _I ain't afraid of no ghost…_

 _***Time Skip***_

Arthur walked away from his parked car as he slid his keys into his pocket, looking up at the large, rust-red brick building with a slight sense of misgiving. He had forgotten until now that the library on Galaxie Avenue also shared space with the county courthouse, and he could never remember if the offices and assorted judiciary enterprises were on the left or the right side –he did, at least, remember that the middle was also part of the office-and-legal portion, so he only had two sides to choose from.

The thoroughly post-modern-looking building itself sat just beside an imposing four-way intersection, accompanied on all sides by department store strips –and on one side, a few townhouses– and with two rather lovely driveways surrounded by white-blossoming trees (Arthur believed that they were small apple trees) that led to each large parking lot, with a small drainage pond, feathered and surrounded by cattails and reeds, lying between them. With its gentle-sloping roof and a large white clock face underneath its very peak, the building itself, despite the way that it looked like a sort of school, never failed to remind Arthur of some sort of mansion or country home.

An incongruous two-storied square addition to the building stuck out from the left side going in, and as Arthur briskly strolled up the pavement, he saw with relief that the word LIBRARY was spelled out in metal block letters atop a steel overhang that lay above the additional square building's glass doors. At least things wouldn't be so difficult as they could be. He adjusted his course accordingly and pushed open the heavy metal-and-glass doors, strolling through the tiny antechamber to a second set of three glass-paned, metal-framed doorways, humming to himself.

" _Oh my twitchy witchy girl, I think you are so nice. I give you bowls of porridge and I give you bowls of ice –cream_."

He stepped through the barcode detectors without glancing at the turn-in slot, his eyes sliding over the large, curving marble countertop on the right that served for checkout problems and card registration, manned by several volunteers, and the self-checkout machines that were stapled into it. He didn't look at the DVD shelves either, held in a large alcove to the left of the entrance lobby, but continued walking past them until he came to the larger part, the actual library itself, which stretched both left and right –mostly right, since on that side it continued into the main building– turned ahead of him, stuffed with bookshelves, desks, and computers. To his direct right, he knew, were the shelves for reserved books, then the children's fiction, then a small nook with cozy, crazily patterned miniature sofas that looked out at the other side of the building –all of which were bumped up against the wall of the building, broken by a few small testing and computer rooms. On the other side of children's fiction, the left side walking down, were more gatherings of computers and comfortable chairs, and to the left of _them_ , on the lower end, were the picture books and elementary-school fiction. On the upper left, the end closest to Arthur and the central section of the library, were the adult fiction –and nonfiction– shelves, nonfiction on the left, fiction on the right, and _waaaaay_ back at the very end, graphic novels, magazines, and two tiny shelves for manga. To the right of the manga bookshelves were the three or four larger shelves of teen fiction, and to the left, more comfy chairs, and to the left of _them_ , the other nonfiction and reference materials, which stretched all the way up to the left of the information desk –which was where Arthur stood at this very minute.

The desk was manned by Elizabeth Héderváry, the first time he had seen her since…since Alfred's funeral. Arthur felt a pinch in his chest at the thought, and resolutely choked it down. He was searching for the killer; hunting, coursing, a hound on the scent. Work now, emote later.

Her elbow-length chestnut hair was held behind one ear by a small bunch of intense indigo-purple flowers –the gardener in Arthur absently noted them as lobelias– and she was dressed professionally in a white button-down shirt, a light black jacket, and a bright red skirt. Obviously, since it was her job to notice such things, she saw him before he spoke, and a sympathetic smile crossed her face as she set aside the folder she had been writing in. "Hey there, Arthur. Come to bury your grief in some old favorites?" Her hand caressed the corner of a nearby fiction novel.

Arthur knew she meant it in a comforting, maybe even in a teasing fashion, but it still hit like a slap in the face. Who'd be able to just –to just forget the death of a family member like that? Who'd _want_ to?

"Actually, I'm on the case." he said with an effort at neutrality, and something undefinable flickered across Elizabeth's expression as she blinked.

"Oh –goodness, I'm sorry." she said in startled apology, before a wry smile curled at the edges of her mouth. "Though I'm afraid we probably don't have much to help you here –most of our material is fiction, as you know to your joy."

"I'm after nonfiction, now, actually." Arthur replied in a halfhearted attempt at their usual banter, before he came to the point. "Is Bel here? Ah, Bel Jansen?" He abruptly realized that couldn't remember if the two had ever even met face to face. "She's blonde, green eyes, ribbon in her hair, taller than you but shorter than me by a few inches…"

He trailed off hopefully, and Elizabeth snapped her fingers with a triumphant smile. "Oh yeah, her! She came in about ten minutes ago, looking for the reference section…over there." She half-turned in the swivel chair and flicked her fingers at the first few bookshelves of the left-most row of nonfiction. "Public records, I believe, right over there."

"Right, thanks." Arthur grunted, moving in the direction she had indicated. He still felt groggy, sluggish, and was in no mood for her brand of humor –which occasionally, though mostly unintentionally, had a painful or rude sting to it. He could always apologize on his next visit –which, in all likelihood, wouldn't be too far off.

He found Bel quickly –in no small part because the reference section was small, only three bookcases of material, and the public records only took up a few shelves of one. She was sitting at the round wooden table near one of the other, area-specific reference desks, not having bothered to change out of her uniform, and fiddling with one of the outsized loops of black ribbon that hung like catlike ears behind her own as she read from a laminated binder.

His footsteps on the carpet alerted her to his presence, and Bel looked up to see him –magnificent bruise-colored-under-the-eye bags and all. "Looks like it lives to write another day." she teased by way of greeting, shoving the opposite chair out for him with the toe of her foot.

"Barely." Arthur muttered with a slight upward twitch of his lips, grabbing the chair by its back and pulling it out further as he all but fell down onto the wooden surface. Bel gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Well, here." she said, turning slightly in her chair to reach down by her feet and place a styrofoam coffee cup midway between the two of them on the table. "On the house from Holland-Handers. Francis says it's okay as long as you acknowledge you owe him a favor, and that Doctor Who is just, um…" The peppy blonde squinted briefly as she recalled the words. "I think it was " _a British excuse for fetishizing their abnormal abundance of phone booths,_ " or something similar."

Arthur scowled, but he reached for the cup anyway. He needed the energy. "Tell that petty frog I don't owe him anything for anything –and that just because his nation practically invented moviemaking doesn't give him the right to criticize current literary masterpieces."

Bel gave an unladylike snort as she looked back down to her binder. "Glad to know that the animosity formed in highschool still endures to this day." she said blandly as she flipped it closed, and Arthur automatically bristled defensively.

"If he had _apologized_ for knocking my tea into my lap, then I wouldn't have-"

"-nearly stabbed him with a plastic knife?" Bel finished in amusement. "Face it, Artie, the two of you were born to hate each other."

Arthur subsided as he took a sulky sip of his tea. "He started it." he muttered, knowing how much like a petulant child he sounded.

"He says the same thing about you." Bel replied, unperturbed. "All our employees get told about Arthur, the heinous British immigrant that tried to force feed everyone at the lunch table tea until Francis nobly sacrificed his self-restraint, at least once. Speaking of work, I got a friend of mine, Wang Yao – the shift manager, remember him?– to draw up this mug shot for you." She slid a piece of paper that had previously been hidden under the binder's front cover towards him; Arthur took it and flipped it right-side-up.

"Good." he commented clinically after a few moments, his green eyes flicking over the graphite-shaded image of Allen. "He's broader in the shoulders and leaner of face –and I think Wang may have misnumbered the piercings, but other than that, this is fairly well done."

Bel snorted. "Don't fall over yourself to praise him. Yao did the best he could with our mutual description –and besides, I'd like to see _you_ do better." she said huffily, and slid another binder across to him. "Here, start reading. I got everything after denim jeans and leather jackets were invented –and trust me, it's a lot. I'd like to be able to get back to the diner by the time my shift starts again."

"Right." Arthur said briskly, and flicked open the binder, his eyes beginning to scan over the nearly typed letters.

It was boring. It was _ungodly_ boring, and several times the blonde Brit had to catch himself from falling asleep at his work, his eyelids growing heavy, and flip back a couple of pages to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Binders, folders, and small transcripts piled up at the sides of the table from the stacks Bel had laid aside –and still, they were no closer to finding Allen's identity. In theory, of course, such reports and such an activity should be riveting –after all, he and Bel were hunting down the living identity of a vicious ghost, his brother's _murderer_. In practice, it was dull, it was so _damnably_ dull, because though, ideally, court reports and so on were fascinating, they were never as interesting as they would be in real life –it was sort of the same problem of trying to read a play's script instead of seeing it preformed live on stage. Concept good, slogging through it…bad. Very bad.

So bad, in fact, that his eyes skimmed sightlessly over the latest in a long page of reports, _Allen Jones, school policy violation. Disturbance of the peace…_

Arthur froze. Did a double-take.

" _Aha!_ Bel!"

She looked up, startled, and hurriedly edged her chair closer to his own so that she could read over his shoulder. "It's from twelve years ago." she noted curiously, and snapped her fingers. "No wonder Ned hadn't seen or heard of him coming to the hospital! We only moved into town six years ago!"

Arthur nodded absently. "Yeah, that makes sense." he grunted, then returned his attention to the slip of paper. " _Jones was reported engaging with several other young men in a fistfight on-campus_." he read aloud. " _No serious injuries recorded. Jones received a black eye and a bloody lip. The cause of the fight is unknown. Other participants include_ …blah, blah, blah. It says here he was eighteen."

"Bit young for him to die and become the ghost you saw." Bel commented. "Either that or he was born with an adultish face."

Arthur shook his head and flipped a few more pages, much more carefully now. "We'll see if he's in here again. I doubt that was how he copped it." he said briskly. "And that doesn't tell us anything about who he was when he was alive."

"Ever the optimist, you are…" Bel muttered dryly, not moving from where she hung over his shoulder. Several tense minutes passed as they scanned the records with minute scrutiny, before Bel gave a little yelp of excitement and jabbed her finger onto the bottom right of a page. "Right there!"

It was another college penalty note. " _Allen Jones, school policy violation. Drinking on campus._ This was about six months later." Arthur said with some surprise, and he and Bel exchanged looks.

"Sounds like he's shaping up to be one of those penny-dreadful bad boys." she said in amusement, though not without sympathy, and he nodded silently.

"Still, there are all sorts of reasons for this behavior. Perhaps he was a good chap, just…wounded." he reasoned politely, trying briefly and without success to turn off his writer mentality. "Maybe he lost his girlfriend, or someone close to him died, and he was lashing out."

"So why'd he kill Alfred after he was dead?" Bel pointed out, gouging a rather large hole in _that_ argument –Alfred would have been about seven years old at the time.

"Maybe it's against our parents." Arthur said without much conviction, and he began paging through the binder once again.

Hardly three pages had been turned before both of them stifled an exclamation, leaning in close to the now-familiar scrawl of words.

 _Allen Jones, school policy violation. Smoking on campus_.

"Spiraling downhill like a shot bird." Bel observed sympathetically, and shook her head. " _Something_ must have been happening to him –people just don't start acting out like that for no reason at all, and we haven't come across any other violations in any of the other school records."

"Aye. Still, that's no reason to give him a free pass for murder." Arthur reasoned sourly, remembering the faint look of terror that, even after passing under the mortuary assistants' hands, had still lingered on Alfred's death-pale face. Bel placed her small, warm hand on his back in mute sympathy, and they continued reading.

An hour later, no new information had come up, and Bel had to return to work. Arthur waved her farewell, and she teased him not-quite-playfully about burying himself in the research before she saw herself out, dainty black purse swinging on her arm.

Arthur continued looking, searching feverishly, but the public records had nothing more, not even the missing persons, not even the court cases that he had painstakingly poured over, document by document, page by page.

"Bollocks." he muttered, churlishly closing the last folder and regarding the maelstrom of paper piled before him irritably. The blonde Brit checked his watch, noting that it had taken him an hour and a half to plow through this incredible waste of time and dead trees; it was now almost four-thirty in the afternoon. With a groan of frustration and a few muttered curses, he began gathering up the papers into some form of organization, to spare the library workers the draconian task.

"Hey, Arthur."

He blinked and looked up, seeing Elizabeth standing before him with a wry smile, holding out an apple. "You look dog-tired, so I saved this from my lunch." she said amicably. "Find what you were looking for?"

"Not exactly." Arthur sighed as he took the apple from her, thinking back on the unsatisfactory amount of information he and Bel had managed to glean. Allen had been acting out on college grounds, starting fights, smoking, drinking, and just generally causing trouble. But why? To what point and purpose? And, perhaps most importantly, to what future effect?

"Well, better luck next time." Elizabeth said sympathetically as she started back towards her desk –even though the library's business was generally rather slow, it would _never_ do for the assisting librarian to be away from the information desk when a customer needed help.

"Mm. Thanks." the blonde mumbled as he bit into the apple with an unenthusiastic crunch. It was as bright red and beautiful as the poisoned apple in Snow White, and deliciously tart, but Arthur wasn't much in the mood for food or treats. His blood was up; like a hunting dog who had gotten a whiff of his quarry, every muscle was tense, like an arrow waiting to be shot from a bowstring, quivering with the anticipation of the run and the chase.

The college was the last place Arthur knew Allen Jones had been.

And so the technical college about twenty minutes away by car was the next place Arthur would be searching.

 _ **9.18 AM, USA Central Time**_


	8. Home-Schooled

**_Ooh, a new person! Hey_ **_AllHeroesWearHats_ _! **Thanks for appreciating it! And the mystery ain't even getting started,**_ _Rising from the Ashes YOLT_ _ **, it ain't even getting started. If this story were a hamburger, then perhaps we have gotten through the bun and onto the first layer of lettuce, and still have the rest of the lettuce, the condiments, the cheese, the pickles, the hamburger itself, and the rest of the bun to go. (Spoken like America in the Hamburger Street character song.) I also finally saw the movie Coraline (and read the book during a flex hour at my school) a few months ago and I must say, I like it. Given the horror stories about the Other Mother's transformation scene I've heard on the net, though, I was expecting something a lot scarier than her just...elongating...and, like, her skin looking like veined marble. (THAT'S WHAT TERRIFIED EVEN GROWN-UPS?!** LAME **!) Though I do suppose that part of it is lingering childhood trauma, and the fact I saw it as an adult…**_ _ **in fact, in other news, I also turned 18 over my four-month break from the lovely world of literature, and have been attending college for a few months now.**_ _ **So I'm, like, a grownup now.**_ _**There's that. God help me. Does anyone know how to reverse the flow of time?**_ _ **Also, sorry about the weirdness with the email (which by the way is not valid even in the correct format, nor the phone number) but this site takes the approach of telling literally any other link NUUU BAD BAD GO** AWAY **. Hence, my creative liberties to keep it in there.**_

 ** _October 24th, 2017_**

* * *

 _A little learning is a dangerous thing._

* * *

 _3rd Person POV:_

Arthur turned up his coat collar as he hurried across the parking lot to the college; the wind was biting icily at his exposed skin –an unpleasant reminder of the grave-cold that Allen had brought with him– as the sun sank below the horizon, reminding the world at large that it was, indeed, fall...or autumn, as Arthur still liked to think of it as.

The college was old, though not in terms of prestige; the blocky, buildings were smooth red brick, shingled thickly with wood, in the way that they had been built some thirty or forty years previous. Arthur thought, as he watched the trees now mostly-bare of leaves quaver and whistle in the brisk breeze, that it was odd how architecture worked –psychologically. He frequently walked pavement that was centuries older than the oldest of these buildings, back in London, and it was old –but not _old_. Not in the derogatory, sensory manner. The _really_ old buildings and architectural constructions, why, they were so ancient that their very age inspired glory, respect and awe –like Stonehenge, the Tower, and the various other British marvels.

But the buildings here –a mere forty or fifty or sixty or seventy– were just…old. Decrepit. Lacking the dignity and grace of true age, and they sat there like hulking, discarded toys spilled on the fabric of the earth by a gigantic, petulant child, quietly moldering away, as their lines and style faded from the memory of common man.

Arthur shivered as he pushed open the door and the wave of internal heating washed over him, letting it close behind his back as he cupped his numb hands and breathed over his fingers to warm them. He had forgotten how truly _cold_ it could get here; right now in Britain, it would only be about 16 degrees Celsius, which was –he did a quick calculation on his slowly thawing fingers– 61 degrees Fahrenheit. The weatherman this morning had announced, with a bright and toothy grin at the exciting prospect, that the high today would be all the way up in the _forties_ –for not even a split second, Arthur had panicked, before he remembered the Celsius-Fahrenheit difference and calmed down. Going from –and this was a far easier calculation– 16 to 9 degrees Celsius in less than a week; well, no wonder Arthur felt as if he should be staked in front of a fire for the next few months, to make an attempt at denting the rime of frost that felt as if it covered him from head to toe.

He saw the cheap-looking blue-and-white plastic sign that probably hadn't changed in ten years that announced " _Reception_ " was up a thin staircase with stone paving that hugged the left side of the extraordinarily slender entry, and ascended it quickly. Darkness came on quickly during the winter, and he'd prefer to get this over with before the sun set completely.

The receptionist was leaning back slightly in his rolling chair, his foreboding face perfectly still as his blue-green eyes roved over a freshly-unfolded newspaper. He was probably two or three years younger than Arthur himself, though the craggy, stern features of his face gave lie to that supposition. His cornsilk-blonde hair was cut short and seem to struggle to spike up under the gel combed into it, and Arthur irrationally tried not to feel jealous as the man spotted him and calmly folded his newspaper back up, his arms and shoulders rippling underneath his neat blue shirt.

Deciding to put a good face on it, Arthur stepped forward and tried to look businesslike as he stood before the counter, set into the wall of the upper entrance hall and probably accessed by the tan-painted steel door beside it. "Hello? I'm looking for Allen Jones's transcripts? He was in attendance here twelve years ago..." he said, trailing off slowly as the other blonde behind the counter seemed content to do nothing but stare at him. "Mister...ah, O-Oxenstierna?" he stumbled, his face flushing as he tried to pronounce the name written on the tag attached to the intimidating receptionist's blue shirt.

"Mm. Y' can call me Berwald. People find 't easier." the receptionist said slowly with a faint but harsh burr –wasn't this school one of the one that did international programs?– and then pushed his glasses up his nose. "Twelve years ago's a long time. Why'd y' want 't?"

"It's a personal matter." Arthur said stiffly, straightening his back further under that penetrating, scrutinizing teal gaze. Berwald did not seem terribly impressed by his answer, but after a few moments he turned and slowly typed something into the computer.

Arthur tried not to squirm or look impatient, but it was hard, as Mr. Berwald gradually racked through the school's files with all the speed and deliberateness of a glacier grinding over a mountain. He supposed that he should be grateful that the search was thorough –surely that was why it was taking so long– but all the same, his fingers itched to take over the keys and scroll through the information to find the records of the man who had killed his brother.

"…Allen Jones, was 't?" Oxenstierna asked after almost five minutes, and Arthur suppressed the minute twitching of his left eye with an effort.

 _He couldn't possibly have **forgotten** it, could he? Oh bollocks, that's just what I need right now._

"Yes." he said through a pleasant smile that consisted of mostly gritted teeth, and Mr. Berwald looked back to the computer and slowly shook his head.

" 'M sorry, but 't appears that student did'n graduate. No transfer records, either." he said ponderously, and Arthur's heart sank like a stone.

"He dropped out?" he asked as a fist clenched around his throat, and Berwald nodded and rubbed his chin, still looking at the grainy screen.

"Happens, y'know. Friend of yours?"

Bitter anger rose like a tide in Arthur's chest, thinking of Alfred and Allen's eerily similar faces, entwined in terror and ugly, hateful victory, and he jerkily shook his head. "Hardly." he ground out, controlling his temper and tamping it down with a supreme exercise of will. "But it's very important that I find him."

 _Tap, tap_ , went the keys. "Y' could ask his old teachers." Berwald offered after almost a minute. "Ain't many left, being twelve years 'n all, but some. Students bond with college teachers a lot easier th'n high school ones, might've told 'em something 'bout his plans."

"Right, thank you." Arthur said briskly, his hopes fluttering upwards once again. "Can I have their names and contact information?"

"Mm-hm. Some'll be teaching now."

" _Perfect_. Just add directions to that list, my good man, and you'll have me out of your hair in a blink."

 _***Time Skip***_

It was fate, it was destiny, it was written in the stars above and in the deeps below, scrawled across the heavens and the hearts of mankind like an ancient prophecy of old. Arthur was 95% certain that it was even an official Newtonian law of physics.

 _Enter a school building as a stranger, and one shall become hopelessly lost and confused within the hour._

It was not, to be admitted, Berwald's fault. Despite how icily intimidating his demeanor was, the receptionist was admirably efficient. Arthur had easily found and talked to three of the four teachers that had been in residence whilst Allen Jones stalked the halls as a living man, and his greatest yield of information thus far had been from the Mathematics professor, who, in vague recollection, had called Allen an "angry young man, though his performance inside the classroom was admirable".

But after that, in his search for the Classical Antiquities professor who had taught Jones, Arthur had gotten turned around, topsy-turvy upside-down, helter-skelter, and, in plain pedestrian terms, just generally lost. The hallways were narrower than most he had seen before in the US, which gave an additional odd sense of displacement and disorientation. Arthur scoffed silently to himself as he climbed up the dozenth flight of stairs in the sixth building thus far, shaking his head at his own folly.

 _And the brave and mighty hero of this tale has not even enough prowess to keep himself from becoming hopelessly lost inside a mundane school building. Bloody hell._

A tiny, bitter, and entirely unwanted voice muttered in his ear _And what does that say for Alfred's chances of vengeance,_ but he ignored it with a sharp jerk of will. Doubt opened doors into weakness, hesitation, _crippling_ him, hobbling him as effectively as if his hands and feet had been bound. Unwanted arrogance did the same, but with the bruises of Allen's icy hands still livid on his throat, under the high collar of his long coat, Arthur doubted he would fall prey to _that_. He'd needed to make that mistake only once, and was lucky to have not paid for it with his life.

"-anks, Professor! I was just _so worried_ with my family's job-"

Arthur turned the corner out of the stairwell to see an olive-skinned young woman talking animatedly with an older man, ostensibly the professor she was referring to, balancing an armful of books and folders with an expression of harried relief. Her waist-length chocolate brown hair was tied back in two pigtails with bright red ribbons, which combined with the cerulean blue dress billowing around her knees made her look surprisingly youthful. "-and I just don't know _what_ I would've done if you hadn't given me that extension on our paper." she finished with a grateful sigh, and the professor, who was leaning his shoulder against the doorframe of his(?) classroom, arms folded, with an amicableness that Arthur professionally disapproved of, laughed a little.

In fact, the man in his entirety exuded such a casual and _completely_ unprofessional charm, despite his age, that Arthur might have been excused in thinking that he was related to that tosspot Francis, somehow. From the short, curly brown hair, to the scruffy hint of stubble on his tanned chin, to the bright half-smile on his equally dark face that seemed ready at any moment to break into a coy grin, to the rumpled, deep red button-up shirt that hung from his broad shoulders and was even unbuttoned at the throat, to the relaxed, humorous sparkle in his green eyes, he was completely unsuited –in Arthur's opinion– to have been teaching at all.

"Oh, I'm sure you would've finished it on time somehow, Miss Mancham." he said flatteringly, and she blushed a little. And no wonder –the powerful way that this man was built, the muscles hinted underneath his shirt, gave lie to the few grey strands in his mussed hair –too artfully so to be anything but deliberate– and no doubt caused more than a few susceptible hearts to flutter.

The man's green eyes moved to Arthur as he approached –fully intending to sidle past the two of them– and he full-on _beamed_ , unfolding his arms and standing upright from the door to extend his hand in what was clearly a hearty welcome. "Hello there! The name's Professor Romulus, just like my namesake, who founded the Ancient Roman Empire! My parents loved the classics, and once I got my teaching license I decided it was just the field for me!" he said happily, and so fast Arthur could hardly process a single word before it was replaced by another. "It was practically _destiny_ for me to teach Classical Antiquities, you know –so are you here for my class, or just lost?"

"Um." Arthur awkwardly regarded the outstretched hand with no small amount of trepidation, uncertain of how to mention he was doing nothing of the sort.

 _Hang about –"Classical Antiquities"._

That was the last class Allen Jones had taken on this campus whose professor he'd not talked to.

 _Oh bloody hell._

"Arthur Kirkland." he sighed, grasping the extended hand firmly. Romulus replied in kind with great enthusiasm, proving that his muscular frame was not just show as the blonde Brit tried to hide a wince. "I'm actually looking for a _former_ student of yours, seeing if anything about him stands out, so on and so forth." he said, and then slowly wet his lips, enunciating the next two words carefully. It was a name of _portent_ , after all, the ghost that had murdered his adoptive brother, and if Romulus came up blank, Arthur would have no more leads and no recourse to find any more. "Allen Jones."

Romulus released his hand –which was almost numb– to tap a finger against his lips, clearly thinking hard. "Jones, Jones…common last name. Any details?" he asked with a tilt of his head, dropping his finger. Arthur stuck his hands in his pockets as the young student, whose neat lettering on the exposed top of one binder marked her as _Michelle_ Mancham, wandered away with an avidly curious look behind herself at the two males.

Arthur opened up his memory and drew ruthlessly on Allen Jone's appearance, adding nor subtracting nothing, providing only what bare facts had given him, giving nothing to speculation or possibility. "Male, brunette-" He didn't know Allen's original eye color. "-around twenty or twenty-five years of age, may or may not have been heavily tanned. Stands at about 5'10 or 5'11. May or may not also have had several facial piercings. He last attended this college twelve years ago, in-"

Romulus, who had been rubbing his unshaven chin as he watched Arthur in perplexity, suddenly blinked and lowered his hand. "Wait, twelve years?" he asked, then laughed a little, almost sheepishly. "Sorry, but I only started working here ten or so ago. I may age beautifully, but even _that's_ going a bit far for me."

"Oh." A bleak wave seemed to crash down upon Arthur's suddenly leaden soul. "The –the receptionist, um, Berwald, he said…he said that you were here. At that time. That you'd met him –Allen Jones, that is."

Professor Romulus shook his head regretfully. "Sorry, but no." he sighed, running his fingers through his tousled locks. "That'd be Professor Karpusi –we teach the same class, but he's been here four years longer."

A wild flame of hope suddenly burst in Arthur's heart. "He was here?!" he asked with every evidence of raw desperation coloring his voice no matter how he tried to keep it even and neutral, taking a half-step forward, and Romulus blinked, clearly startled by his urgency.

"Er –yes." he said, taken aback. "He would've taught classes at the same time your friend Allen Jones was here, and since he was the only teacher of that subject we had at that time…"

Professor Romulus trailed off, the implication of his words hanging heavily in the air between them.

"Where is he?" Arthur asked, trying to regain his aplomb.

The brunette professor blinked, looking considerably put-out in comparison to his earlier cheery benevolence. It was clear that Arthur's urgency had startled him. "Er, his class should've let out by now, so he'd be in his office…down the hall and to the right." he said hesitantly, lifting a hand and pointing. "Room 196-"

"Right, thank you." Arthur replied, cutting him off, and turned briskly on his heel as his long coat whipped sharply behind him.

He ignored the tentative, mumbled " _Well, you're welcome, but he's_ …" from behind him, already putting the benighted Professor Romulus from his mind. It was _vital_ to track down his fragile lead before something _else_ went horribly wrong. A few ruffled feathers meant nothing, not in the face of chasing down Alfred's murderer.

Absolutely nothing.

Arthur's bright green eyes began searching nameplates as he turned the corner, counting down to 196. Briefly, he wondered what Romulus had tried to warn him against as he found the right doorway. A quarrelsome nature, perhaps, that he would have to soothe over? A addleheaded personality that he'd have to urge into focus? A busy martinet, who would snap at him for the interruption to his valuable work and therefore have to be convinced of Arthur's need? Well, whatever it was, Arthur felt himself more than capable to handle it as he turned the knob and opened the door –after all, what was a living man in comparison to a ghost?

There was a light tap and gentle _thunk_ against the wood of the doorframe as it swung inwards, and as he pushed the door open wider the blonde Brit had just enough time to gasp and recognize something teetering on the very edge of a table shoved tight to the wall and so close to the door that it was barely a centimeter away from blocking its progress before the object overbalanced and tumbled downwards.

"Bloody-!"

Arthur yelped and lunged to catch what looked like a priceless 3,000-year-old antiquity from smashing on the floor, and barely had his hands closed around it than a heavy stack of far more modern papers slid from the selfsame table and spilled in a rustling cascade over his arms.

 _What in the -what kind of nutter has an organizational system like this!?_ He thought in outrage, carefully extracting the precious artifact he clutched from the mountain of candy-colored papers and praying that whatever it was, it wasn't made of a material that would be negatively affected by the oil on his skin. The table it had plunged from was completely covered –to the extent that the wood was not even visible– in more papers, files, folders, pens, pencils, calculators, and more valuable-looking artifacts peeped out from underneath the mess or were balanced precariously on shoddy-looking textbooks –Arthur could almost swear he even saw a walking cane and the packet for an unused condom in the shambles.

The rest of the office was in a similar condition; it looked like a bomb had hit, if the bomb had been filled with a liberal amount of student papers, file applications, and sheets of homework. Arthur even spotted a series of USB chips, flash drives, jump drives, and memory sticks tied to strings and dangling from a single cord strung across the ceiling, like a bizarre kind of fairy lights. Pottery from Egypt and Athens and Mesopotamia vied for space on the overstuffed shelves for figurines and pictures and paintings of cats and –Arthur jumped when he saw it– a fair number of live cats themselves, curled up and snoozing on the soft bed that the innumerable student papers had provided them with. When he looked closer, for that matter, a fair number of the artifacts and suchlike detailed feline shapes to begin with.

The place looked like it had been gutted. It looked like a post office that hadn't been cleaned in seven generations. It looked like a storm had exploded in a paper factory. It looked-

"-like you're going to burst a blood vessel or something." A yawn, like he had been just awoken from a nap. "Relax, huh? It's an organized mess."

"An. An. An orga-" Arthur could feel his own lips trembling with incredulity, but couldn't stop them, any more than he could unwrap the vise-grip he had on the small statuette he clutched or the furious shaking of his form. "-an _organized_ -are you- you can't posib- this is- _no_ respect for antiquities-"

The man currently laying with his arms stretched out above his head and his chin resting on his desk, which reached new and untold heights of sheer clutter –was that a _shoe_ in there, by the corner!?– blinked lazily up at the blonde Brit, whose right eye was twitching spasmodically as he gazed upon the gutted room. "Would you like some wine?" he offered with a solicitous –though drowsy– voice. He lifted his arm slightly to gesture vaguely at the corner to his right. "There's some…somewhere. You looked stressed. You should sit down, have a drink."

"Ah -drink." Arthur choked out in a strangled voice, eyes blazing. His chest heaved as he strove to take in even, shaky breathes, and slowly, forced himself to calm down. "No -thank you. No drinks. I have -ah- a question. About a former student."

"Mmm." The disheveled _mess_ of a human being yawned hugely, then slowly straightened up. A tortoiseshell cat leaped up onto the place on the desk where his head had formerly rested, and he absentmindedly reached out to stroke its head and scratch behind its ears as he looked at the blonde Brit. "Name's Heracles Karpusi. I teach Classical Antiquities with Romulus-"

"We've met." Arthur said tersely, carefully replacing the fragile statuette on a slightly less cluttered bit of the table, closer in to the wall and further away from the edge. "The student I'm looking for was here twelve years ago, so he referred me to you."

"Ah." Professor Karpusi nodded wisely, then yawned again, his plain white T-shirt and canvas jacket making Arthur's earlier mental criticisms of Romulus's professionalism seem practically _tame_ by comparison. "Why're you looking for him?"

"Personal reasons." the blonde replied more sharply than he would have intended, looking around the office (in vain) for somewhere free of clutter to sit down. It seemed as if the only open place was currently occupied by the drowsy professor. "I'm trying to track him down and…get some questions answered."

" 'Kay." the brunette replied absently, clearly forgetting the importance of his line of inquiry to begin with. He raked some of his curly brown hair away from his face with his fingers and leaned back in the chair –Arthur heard a squeak and pop of protest from its framework– and folded his hands over his denim-clad lap as he clearly mustered what alertness he had to offer. "Name?"

"Allen Jones. Male, brunette, around twenty or twenty-five years of age, may or may not have been heavily tanned. Stands at about 5'10 or 5'11. May or may not also have had several facial piercings. He last attended this college twelve years ago, as I told you before." Arthur repeated heavily, folding his arms.

Professor Karpusi nodded several times, his eyes unfocused. "Twelve years, twelve years…" he mumbled to himself, rubbing his slightly unshaven chin. "Last time I sorted everything out, hmm…was it seven or eight years ago, I wonder?"

"You haven't cleaned your own office in seven years." Arthur repeated faintly, dumbstruck, and Karpusi animated for the first time as he pulled himself from his chair, a shadow of a scowl on his face.

"History is valuable." he mumbled crossly as he crossed the room, starting to move papers around in a certain corner as several cats scampered past and between his legs, hissing at being disturbed. "And you never know what might become history. Everyone laughs at me for keeping all my things, but you aren't laughing now, eh, when you're asking for files so old that "no one in their right mind" would keep 'em?"

Arthur mumbled something that he hoped sounded affirmative, all the while thinking, _I've seen neater-looking rubbish heaps than this place!_

Karpusi finished sifting papers to the side, revealing that, in fact, underneath the labyrinthine pile there lay a small metal filing cabinet. "It's always the same." he grumbled under his breath. Arthur flinched and looked down as something hooked into the material of his trouser legs, his eyes meeting the equally green orbs of a brown tabby. It kneaded his shins demandingly and gave a low yowl, and he warily bent down to pick it up as Karpusi continued talking.

"…complaining about my office looking like a mouse nest-" The ears of nearly every cat in the room pricked up at the unwary choice of words, then lowered when no mice were forthcoming. "-but throwing their hands up in the air and shrugging whenever a student wants back any paper written more than a year ago, oh yes, and then they all come crying to "Cat-Crazy Karpusi" and beg for something they know I have somewhere, like they weren't complaining about it a few days before." the shaggy-haired professor grumbled to himself, shifting open and closing the various file drawers in succession. Amusingly enough, from the outside at least, his voice was still a slow, sleepy drawl, and his movements were languid and unhurried, in direct contrast to his vexed statements.

Arthur felt the cat in his arms squirm a little, and soothingly scratched behind its ears as it let out a low, rumbling purr. "Perhaps, er, maybe not keep everything in your office?" he suggested as tactfully as he could, and Karpusi snorted as he closed another drawer.

"I don't." he said drowsily. "These are just newsletters and reference files. All the big stuff goes in my house or my classroom."

Arthur made a small squawking noise –he _knew_ he did– as the blood rushed dizzily to his head.

 _Oh dear god. His poor students._

Karpusi pulled out another cabinet and made a lazy sound of satisfaction. "Ah. Here." He straightened up and dusted his knees off, looking at Arthur and nodding towards the open drawer. "News and catalogues of everything that crossed my desk from that year."

The cat in his arms sneezed as the blonde Brit stepped closer to the cabinet, and he found his own eyes and nose tickling as the warm, furry body launched itself from his arms and scampered off. Dust was thick in the air, and Arthur found himself pulling his sleeve across his face as he bent down and went on one knee, reaching out with his other arm to pull the drawer further open and inspect its contents.

The brightly colored and patterned papers were faded slightly, some soft and disintegrating, some hard and brittle, and Arthur thumbed through the various files gingerly, pulling out each paper and flipping it over to look at both sides before replacing it. It took quite a long time, as Professor Karpusi seemed to have been the same sort of information black hole, a magpie-man that sucked in every scrap of data around him and then stuffed it all together in one gigantic heap. Arthur was just as likely to pull out a local issue of the newspaper than a slip detailing college events, along with lists and lists of student papers and their subjects.

He found a copy of the same school violations he and Bel had discovered in the files that a cloudy piece of colored plastic marked as _March_ and _September_ , and his heart began to pound as he discovered the last one, the one penalizing the murderer for smoking on campus, towards the back of the _September_ folder, with a black-green scrawl of ink on the right-hand corner, in the same hand that dated all the other files, noting it as having been received on _September 23rd_.

He was getting close.

Arthur began turning the files with excruciating care, his pulse thundering in his ears. He felt as if his fingers were tingling the closer they got to whatever vital scrap of evidence Karpusi has squirreled away, and he was torn by the conflicting urges to slam the drawer shut and flee from the portentous office or leap forward and dig through the pages even faster.

And finally, in _October_ , sandwiched between another packet of reference pages for homework and a thin sheet luridly plastered with ink, announcing an upcoming Halloween event, Arthur found it.

A small, bright red bit of stiff paper, like construction-paper, with black ink in bold letters all across it, and a dark, grainy, smudged picture of Allen as he must have been in life.

 **MISSING PERSON REPORT**

 **Allen Jones**

 **Age 20**

 **Last seen leaving the parking lot of Holland-Hander's diner on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, black, with silver decal work in the shape of baseball stitches, wearing a dark or leather jacket and ripped jeans. Please report any sightings to his parents, Derek and Cathy Jones, at their home phone, 952-424-2564, or their email, DCjonesfamily(a)outlook/com.**

Arthur stupidly flipped the notice over, but it was blank on the opposite side.

This was not…this had to be some kind of mistake. This could not be right. Allen Jones could not possibly have been related to his foster parents in any way.

And yet…

And yet…there was their phone number – _his_ phone number growing up, _Alfred's_ phone number growing up– printed in solid black ink. He rubbed at it with his thumb, and it did not smudge.

And there, there, was his foster parents' joint email, the one that they had used all the time when he was still a member of their household. DC for Derek and Cathy, abbreviated for a little joke that Alfred had always loved. _DC like the capital, and Jones for us, because the Jones family has been a part of America since the Mayflower._

And then Alfred and his father would chime in unison " _Whether or not it was our branch!_ " and then Alfred would fall into hysterical giggles.

This was impossible. How _could_ it be possible? How had no one known? Not even Arthur, not even _Alfred_. How could Alfred, who would have been about seven at the time, how could he not have ever remembered or mentioned it to Arthur? Why hadn't his parents kept any mementos or photo albums with this elder brother in them?

 _What was going on here!?_

 _ **10.45 AM, USA Central Time**_


	9. Paper Trail

_**PLOT TWIST HAHA! Erm, um, I mean,** goodness **, what an alarming turn of events, oh me, oh my, I am so terribly utterly sorry for such a thing to have occurred on my watch. Oh dearie me. *pause* …ehehehe, but anyways, yeah. We're getting into the good stuff now~ Oh, also, hello to** Ella Rose1 **, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Same to you,**_ _LaughingAlanna_ _, **it's nice to be appreciated. I'll keep doing my best!**_ _ **In other news, I'm writing this from London, yay! Changing things up a bit, as my Grandpa usually stays at the hotel on Tottenham Court Road –this time we're in an Air B &B (I think?) in Blackheath. Still cool! Took **forever **and a lot of walking to find it, though.**_

 _ **March 4th, 2018**_

* * *

 _Reader beware  
_ _as you pass by,_

 _As you are now,  
_ _so once was I._

 _As I am now,  
_ _So you will be_

 _Therefore prepare  
_ _to follow me._

* * *

 _3_ _rd_ _Person POV:_

Arthur escaped the dusty, cluttered, cat-filled office in a daze, clutching the _impossible_ red slip of paper in one hand. He wandered the hallways in a daze, collapsing upon the first starchy, worn armchair that he found and staring blankly at the opposite wall. This could not be happening. He had fallen into some twisted alternate reality of lunacy and fact and myth and the fact that _Allen Jones was related to his parents, **Allen Jones was related to Alfred,**_ **ALLEN JONES HAD KILLED HIS OWN BROTHER!**

It was like he and his knowledge of the world had been a sphere of glass, and this one inescapable fact had seized it and dashed it to the floor, shattering Arthur and scattering his fragments across an uncaring, empty void of nothing. He was jittery, his nerves ebbing and surging with unpredictable spikes that made him wonder whether or not it might be wise to remain in the floral-patterned armchair (that more belonged in a biddy's living room than the corridors of a sophisticated college) until he could get up and drive home safely.

His parents…oh god, his foster parents, what was he going to tell them?! What would he even say? What _could_ he say?

But he had to say something. Didn't he? Or could he just…remain quiet about the whole business, let them live in blissful ignorance for the rest of their lives?

 _No_. Arthur shook his head as if denying a verbal question asked of him, clapping his hands against his own cheeks several times as if to sting himself into wakefulness. That was balderdash. He, Arthur Kirkland, had picked up the thread of murder, and like a victim in the legendary Greek maze, he must follow it to its end. There was quite simply no other option. There were no other dabblers in the magic arts, no random sensitives of the supernatural wold, no one else that he could pass this baton on to within hundreds of miles, perhaps the entire state. Responsibility for this case rested solely and squarely on his shoulders, and by God, Arthur was going to see his duty through to the end if it killed him.

Which it very well might.

The blonde Brit swallowed as he rummaged in his expansive coat, looking for the pocket that held his cellphone. He –had– to tell his parents something, not everything –of course not _everything_ – but he simply must inform them of this…event. Something was niggling in the back of his head; why had they not mentioned this to him, to the _police_ , when Alfred had died? One son missing, one son dead –surely even in the most mundane of minds, without even a thought to the possibility of ghosts, that should be cause for suspicion, for the possibility of a connection between both events? Furthermore, what was the conclusion to this earlier case? Neither he nor Bel had found Allen Jones's name in the local mortuary reports, not even any mention of his mere body as a John Doe. Had the case never been closed?

He had to ask, and he had to find out from whatever clues, whatever minor cues and ticks, that his parents dropped, what they thought about the case.

Arthur hit the dial button and out his phone to his ear, waiting on tenterhooks for either his mother or father to pick up. Both of them had asked for several days of work off, to grieve and to achieve closure by going through Alfred's old things, now released by the police back to the family.

Several moments of ringing went by, and then there was a soft _click_ as the line was picked up.

" _Arthur?_ "

"Mum." he answered cautiously, hearing her sorrow even over the phone. She had probably been crying. "Are you alright? I have some…news."

" _N-news?"_ she sniffled over the line. Arthur could easily imagine her clutching a sodden handkerchief. " _W-what news?"_

He inhaled slowly, his free hand closing in a first over his knee. "I was digging around some leads I might've found for Alfred's death."

" _Y-you have?"_ His mum's voice sounded brittle, like it might crack at any moment, and he heard a few watery-sounding sniffles as she pulled herself together. " _Oh, dear, you didn't need to do that. T-the police will find w-whoever-"_ She choked down a sob, and Arthur bit his lower lip guiltily.

"Er, well, I found something else." he hastened to say, feeling as if he were juggling a series of bombs over the phoneline with only one hand. Did he continue letting her fall apart over her younger son's murder, confront her about potentially hiding things from him, or force her to reminisce about the loss of her eldest son?

 _Oh, bugger._ He just had to come out and say it. Like ripping off a bandage, a memory-filled, traumatizing, potentially horrifying bandage.

"I found a Missing Person's report on Allen Jones. You eldest son."

She stopped crying immediately. If Arthur had to put a label on the kind of silence that followed, he would have said it was both shocked and wounded, like he had unexpectedly stuck her across the face.

"… _A-Allen?"_

"What happened to him? Did you ever find him?" Arthur prompted as gently as he could, and there was another choked, gasping sob, as if she had clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise.

" _N-no."_ she whimpered in a strangled voice, clearly about to break into another flood of tears. Arthur felt lower than ever, but he must –must– _mustn't_ allow his emotions to cloud his judgment. He _needed_ to follow this line of inquiry through to its end. He _could not_ afford to give the quarter he so longed to give his adoptive mother. He just needed to grit his teeth and bear it, because the truth was worth any price, any pain, and he needed to follow this train of logic through to its end, like a string leading him out of a maze.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about him?" he urged quietly. "The big brother of Alfred's who conveniently never appeared in any photo albums or stories?"

" _A-Allen?"_ his mum quavered, gulping down her tears as she tried to answer him. " _Well he, he hasn't exactly been home in a long time, and we didn't want to worry you about him-"_

"Mum, he's your _son!"_ Arthur said, more harshly than he intended in his surprise. "More of a son than I am, since he was related to you by blood and not by law!"

His nails bit into his palm as memories of his own blood floated to the surface of his brain. Children should not –should _never_ – be cast aside by their parents and family, cast aside to be forgotten and thrown away like a broken bit of garbage. Cast aside to be raised in a cold, foreign place, far from home, because the only people at the establishment willing and able to take him in were an American couple on holiday, who soon tired of the quiet, self-reliant child and flung him headlong into their own foster system.

" _Yes, well, Allen made some bad choices in his life. We had to...let him go, as it were. Let him find his own path. We didn't want any more bad blood to come between him and the rest of the family, so we just...didn't talk about him. Our door was and will always be open for him if he ever decides to come home."_

"Ah. I see…" Arthur mumbled, his tense body slowly relaxing again. That was a fair estimate of his parents' tendencies, and the blonde Brit felt his shoulders slowly loosening. "Well, thank you, mother. I'll…I'll call back if I find anything new."

" _You do that, sweetie. Goodbye!"_

There was a _click_ as the line disconnected, and Arthur lowered his hand with a sigh, staring at the device in his hand as he let it fall to his lap. Back to dead ends again, quite literally.

No, that wasn't quite it. Allen Jones was a Missing Person, _not_ a murder victim, _not_ a suicide, and _not_ an accident. This community was close-knit, had been for years. Whatever or _whoever_ had happened to the now-deceased Allen, it was not local. Moreover, his Bronx accent wasn't _local_ , and it was faint, something that perhaps a non-native would have picked up through long years of close habitation. Perhaps he had fled to that area, never to be found by the police. Perhaps he had stayed there for a long time, enough to pick up some of the local color in his speech pattern and vocals.

Perhaps he had died there, and no one had learned of his acquired accent whilst he was still living.

Right. _Right_. Arthur clearly needed to start a more thorough and intense investigation than the police had previously undergone, and to do that, he needed far more privacy than what he would get in his own home, courtesy of his well-meaning, but ultimately quite invasive and snoopy, parents.

He opened up his phone again and hit the speed-dial.

"Hello, Bel?" Arthur asked as he lifted the screen to his ear. "I'm going to need some more _private_ accommodations for a while…any real estate dealers you know of?"

 _***Time Skip***_

His name was Mathias Køhler, evidently, a twenty-something blonde with roots in Denmark, _extremely_ unprofessionally wild hair and a long red coat, and the gleaming billion-watt smile and motor-mouth of a born salesman.

"Hey hey hey! Kirkland, right? Arthur Kirkland? Lookin' for a home of your own, I see!" Arthur's hand had been seized and wrung in a viselike grip. "That's the man, that's the man! Always good to strike out on your own! That's what my great ancestors did, comin' across from the Scandinavian forests to make these nice chilly woods all homey. You from Britain? Neat, neat. Not settling here permanently, huh? C'mon, it's a great gig. Still no, huh? Well, we'll change your mind, we'll change your mind. Eh? You used to live here? Neat! So I don't have to tell ya how great it is!"

This constant steam of semi-inane babble had kept up the whole time Mathias ("C'mon man, nobody calls me "Køhler" except my fiancé when he's pissed!") was driving him to the first of the small homes Arthur planned to rent for however long it took to crack the case –he'd given Mathias the timetable of roughly six months, potentially more, possibly less. If it wasn't remarks about his _eyebrows_ , which were _fine_ ("Don't get all huffy on me man, they look like these huge caterpillars!"), it was a running commentary on the other drivers ("Man, look at that guy driving fifty in a sixty-five. Hey granny, lets hustle a bit! Eh? Eh? Well, I thought it was clever."), their cars ("Ho-ly _moly_ , that's an old pickup! Hey, if it hits a pothole, do you think the bumpers will fall off?"), or the general condition of the road itself. (Now if you go down Cedar, it's a _way_ faster route, but right now's rush hour so it'd be a bit dicey. Nice night though, huh? Cooling down a bit from today, gosh, it must'a been all the way up in the _forties!_ I almost had to come in without my coat!"

In short, though he was amazed (and a tiny bit concerned) with the speed and efficiency with which Bel had rustled up a seemingly valid real estate agent, Arthur was beginning to fervently wish that he had left dealing with this to a later date, one where he wasn't so tired and prone to thinking uncharitably of very strong duck tape, very heavy weaponry, and a very shallow grave.

But he held his tongue –though it was sore from him biting it– and merely grunted or nodded politely to most of the vapid and aimless questions directed his way. It was only when they got to the first of the small, rentable homes that Mathias had set up for his viewing that the abominably perky man straightened out and really started attending to his business.

"So!" Matthias exclaimed, spreading his arms wide and all but standing atop a pedestal to draw attention –to himself or the house, Arthur was uncertain. He clapped a hand on the smaller blonde's shoulder and gestured towards the modest suburban home whose driveway they had parked in. Like all American homes, or at least the ones Arthur had commonly seen, it was a common, plain old thing like a hundred of its kind, shingled with tiles that might have all come from the same company and coated with insulating white planks –rarely in another color, such as tan, brown, or the very infrequent red– that looked like wood but actually weren't. It was odd for the Brit to see the home standing so far apart from its neighbors, but then again, that was nothing new either. Every house on the block was the same, with a few minor additions and subtractions of porches and patios and rearrangements of placements of the garage and the front steps. That was another thing Arthur disliked about American homes; so identical, so factory-made, so standard. Hardly any character to them at all. "You like?"

His green gaze moved over the nondescript shrubs and the graveled border surrounding the path to the front door, the lank, twisted autumn grass, the spartan simplicity of the cream curtains hung in the bay windows. "It's…the outside is not entirely what I am interested in. Perhaps a rundown of the things that I may expect?" Arthur asked as diplomatically as he could manage; nothing loathe, the towering salesman clapped his wool-mittened hands together and rubbed them eagerly.

"A businessman, a businessman, I like you. Right down to brass tacks. Well, it charges 'bout 1,000 a month –uh, that's USD, as I'm sure you know– and that covers water, heating, electricity, wifi, whole kit and kabootle. No television networks though, and no furniture either, that's all on you. Garbage disposal and lawn care's included in the bill too, though you'll have to be the one shoveling snow and watering the plants. Two floors, two bedrooms with attached bathrooms, one bathroom downstairs, and-"

"No basement?"

Mathias bobbed his head sheepishly, breath steaming in the chilly evening air. By now, though it was barely past suppertime, the skies were as dark as black velvet, the suburban streets lit harshly by the orange glow of streetlamps, the grass a prickly, feathered swath of wetter darkness cut against the harsh flat blur of the concrete. " 'fraid not." Mathias admitted. "No call for it. Why? That on your list?"

"That, or an attic." Arthur said as smoothly as he was able, trying not to feel too cliché. Despite how _desperately_ stereotypical it was, Arthur would have preferred it if he were able to do all of his illicit magical activities in either of those two locations, for a very simple, mundane reason; there was no way any ordinary nosy-parkers would be able to see what he was doing. Perhaps that's why those two locations within supernatural houses acquired such mystique –it was far easier to hide what one was doing in there.

"Hmm." Mathias looked put out for perhaps the briefest of brief seconds as he stroked his chin, but then that dazzling pearly-white smile settled firmly back in place as he straightened and thrust his shoulders back, blue eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. "Well, that narrows things down quite a bit! Means I've only got one house for ya to look at! These rent-in homes, they don't usually come with more than one or two levels 'cause it's usually only singles or traveling families, and they don't care much for storage space. Why ya need it?"

This rapid-fire commentary was ended in a question so lightning quick that, even when prepared for the eventuality, Arthur was caught off guard. "I- erm, um, it's for gardening purposes. Mushrooms and such."

" _Oh_." The way the taller blonde had exclaimed the word, Arthur had just explained the divine secrets of the universe, never mind a valid excuse for his slightly odd request. "Lukas does that too! Grows those weird little fairytale mushrooms, uh, the red umbrella-looking ones with the little white dots on top-"

" _Amanita muscaria?"_ Arthur asked in slight surprise, and Mathias nodded absently as they turned to stroll back into the car.

"Eh, that sounds right." he agreed with a shrug that hardly rumpled his loose red coat. "He did it for his grad project, uh, it was something about Vikings and berserkers and psychedelics-"

"It's a semi-common postulate that the psychoactive properties of the amanita mascara mushroom –commonly known as fly agaric or fly amanita– may have aided in causing the feared state of the Berserker warriors of the Viking age." Arthur cut in. "They would have achieved this state by parboiling the mushrooms in mead or some other alcoholic-"

Mathias laughed as the doors to the car clicked shut. "Damn, no wonder Lukas asked me to cut you a deal! Never mind old besties, it's like the two of you were cloned from the same mold!"

The blonde Brit made what he hoped was a noncommittal noise of agreement, though his brows furrowed subtly as both the car and Mathias's mouth revved up into high gear once again.

 _Who the bleeding hell is Lukas…?_

 _***Time Skip***_

The driveway leading up to the house was pale and streaky, the tar clearly having seen better days and the concrete underneath showing through in faded, uneven patches. The tree out front, while large, seemed equally scruffy and disreputable, as though it had never been pruned in its life and would give up a good fight if someone dared to attempt it now. Gleaming like a rough marble ribbon in the light of the streetlamps and the fitful moon, the path to the door curved around to the left, cupping a flattened sort of juniper bush that looked as if a giant had recently sat on it. Another tree sat diagonally a few meters away, a scrawny sort of sapling whose largely-bare branches seemed flung up like a twisted cotton-puff of smoke that seemed uncertain of where to go from that point, a gangling adolescent of a plant that seemed tiny and hubristic in calling itself a tree compared to the larger oak sprawled on the other side of the driveway, with its upraised branches piercing the sky like fangs.

The curtains in the front window were a thin, gossamer, sort of ruche-folded tan fabric which would do little to hide the interior from any prying eyes; with any kind of light before or behind them, they would only diffuse silhouettes into a dim glow. Upon opening the front door, Arthur and the loudmouthed salesman stepped onto the small, rough mat of an entrance carpet that was a key fixture to all Minnesota buildings Arthur had ever seen. Whether a displaced greeting mat intended to be used on the front step, a bristle-edged wire carpet specifically designed for damp weather, an industrial mat designed for the purpose, or an indoor carpet so old and battered that it's fibers had shrunk and curled in the intermittency of a thousand washes, every Minnesotan building Arthur had ever entered had something to wipe the snow and slush off from ones boots either at or near an entry door. In this case, it was a small, compressed carpet so overused that no one really cared what happened to it anymore; the pattern of climbing vines and trumpet flowers might have been attractive decades ago, but the colors were muddied and the fibers themselves packed down tight from a dozen winters' worth of icy snow and filthy road-slush, and two more coatings of damp grit, from Arthur's working boots and Mathias's sneakers, were hardly even noticeable.

The floor beyond the ragged square of a defiant textile that claimed itself a rug was cheap hardwood flooring, possibly pine or even some kind of faux-wood, overlaid with a glossy sheen to protect it. To the left was the living room that Arthur had briefly spotted through the curtains, separated from the entry hall by a wave of off-color white carpeting cut diagonally across the hardwood floor, spreading out to end in (and this was novel) what appeared to be a functioning, though unlit, fireplace. Ahead of them and the door, a six-piece chandelier of opaque bell-shaped glass lamps cast light over a modest kitchen, the addition of a stone-countertopped island making it lean towards the cramped side of cozy. But living in England, Arthur was used to that.

To the right were the stairs leading up to the second level; to the left, Arthur was surprised to note, was a hallway leading to a hardwood-floored room with a wall of mirrors and two bright rows of lights facing in opposite directions, looking for all the world like a preparatory dance studio. Glancing uneasily at the mirrors, he privately resolved to cast some of his strongest shielding charms in here, and to avoid the area as much as possible. On this left-hand hallway as well was the door down to the basement, which was featureless concrete and lit only by an eerily dangling lightbulb on a chain, and the downstairs bathroom, which was nearly as grim.

On the upper floor, reached by a much softer (and less steep) staircase padded by more of the nondescript white carpeting, four doors turned off into three bedrooms –painted in various inoffensive pastel colors, mint green and soft pink and an olive tint so pale it was almost grey– and one bathroom. All of these rooms were carpeted but completely devoid of any furnishings except for the overhead lights, and these were as basic and uniform as possible.

It would do, Arthur decided. It would do.

"Right, I'll take it." he said aloud, cutting across Mathias's babble, and to the seal the deal, they shook hands on it. Then Mathias promptly sought the boot of his car for the more legal confirmation of the matter, and Arthur excused himself to ring up Bel and ask her to fetch his things from his parent's house.

She picked up quickly –then again, she was probably off of her work shift by now, relaxing in some way or another, perhaps by indulging in her favorite gossip rags or watching a playthrough of her favorite horror games. Somewhere deep in his gentleman's soul, Arthur felt a brief twinge for disturbing her, but he brushed it off. Now that the property was, spiritually, claimed as his, he didn't want to take his eyes –or presence– off of it for a moment. Ghosts worked in ways that modern magicians (sadly) were not fully able to comprehend, and Arthur did not want to find out the unpleasant way that his movement to and claiming of an unprotected location had sent out psychic ripples that Allen could sense.

" _Hello, my beloved British boyfriend._ "

Arthur suppressed the urge –barely– to roll his eyes. " _Hello_ , my beautiful blonde belle." he replied with deadpan humor, then sighed at his own pun –and hers as well. "When will I ever be able to knock you from the habit of using that _reprehensible_ alliteration?"

" _When you stop fitting it so well._ "

"I haven't been your boyfriend for _years_." Arthur replied with devastating logic, raising an eyebrow, but unfortunately Bel rallied quickly. That was always something he had admired, and _yes_ , been attracted to, about her.

" _Alright then, you blonde British bastard,_ " she chuckled as he drifted over to the gauzy curtains, watching Mathias sift through what was an honestly an impressive amount of files and paperwork. " _Has Mr. Køhler found you a house yet?"_

"Yes, actually…how on earth did you dig him up?" Arthur asked absently, hypnotized by the way Mathias seemed to continue babbling regardless of whether or not he had an audience, exclaiming to himself loudly as he searched through the papers in the boot of his car.

" _His affianced is a work colleague of my brother's. Ned asked Lukas to do you a favor, so he convinced Mathias that he and you were old friends and convinced Mathias to give you a discount on those grounds._ "

"Ah." Arthur said carefully. Then his brow furrowed. "Hang about…how can one doctor give another doctor those kind of orders?"

Bel paused delicately. " _Well, Lukas is actually a pharmaceutical director and it, um…wasn't through that line of work. Their colleagues through their second, er, jobs._ "

Arthur was silent for a few moments as he continued watching Mathias without really seeing him, before replying, most sternly "…Bellona Jansen, are you implying to me that your brother is _dodgy?"_

" _No!"_ she exclaimed instantly. " _Or, er, well, not exactly, it's more of a…oh look, I can't tell you this over the phone! We'll talk about it later –don't you have a deal to close?"_

"Er, yes." he agreed hastily, snapping back to the present. "Ah –that's actually why I called. Would you mind too terribly if I asked you to deliver my personal effects to this address? I don't want to leave the house…" Arthur paused for a moment. "… _empty_." he finished delicately, hoping that she would put two and two together.

She did.

" _Alright, I won't be but a blink, as you Brits would say. Good thing you came over in a suitcase, or I never would've been able to fit all of your weird paraphernalia into my car. Bye~"_

"It is _not_ weird-" Arthur was left hotly protesting into the silent receiver. He glared poisonously at his phone, as if was somehow the cause of his irritation or could be cowed if it was, then sighed and turned to face Mathias and his paperwork as the bulkier blonde shoved the door open.

 _***Time Skip***_

Paperwork signed, credit card swiped, transaction gone through, and personal effects on their way, Arthur set about making this suburban home into a stronghold against the supernatural, with (obviously) a particular eye to malignant ghosts especially. He paid special attention to the practice room, with its wall of mirrors, and even briefly debated smashing them, but then decided against it. After all, this was not Arthur's permanent residence; this was like a flat he had rented for a certain period of time, and none of its previous furnishings were his property to destroy.

The doorbell rang as he was carefully locking the door to that room, and Arthur cautiously slid his working knife off of the kitchen island as he walked by, slipping it behind his back as he crept towards the door and peered through the peephole. Being cautious had taken him this far, after all, and he wasn't about to let his guard down now just because he _expected_ an arriving guest.

It was just Bel, however, looking perky and peppy with his suitcase on the stoop beside her and a backpack slung over her back. She'd changed out of her uniform and wore a red button-up with a chic black skirt and low flats. Arthur smiled and undid the chain locks, pulling the door open with a courtly bow as she half-laughed and made a miniature curtsy in return, shaking her beribboned head.

"May this good lady ask permission to enter the castle, milord?" she asked playfully, and he chuckled and held out one hand towards the hallway as he straightened.

"Permission given and granted, luv. I hope rousting you out wasn't too much of an inconvenience, was it?"

"Nah." she chirped, skipping inside and dragging his suitcase after her with a rattle of wheels. "I was actually kinda worried, y'know. I wanted to check in!" She cupped his cheek with a teasing but not entirely insincere pout of worry. "It's always when the gang splits up that the monsters start coming for them."

The blonde Brit half-smiled and shook his head as he closed the door behind her with a flick of his wrist, watching her withdraw her hand and strut down the hallway. "Playing through horror games has scrambled your brain more than enough for one night, I think." he bantered in return, and Bel turned to stick her tongue out at him. They both laughed, strolling casually towards the kitchenette as Bel glanced around herself with lively curiosity.

"So, this place have any furniture?" she asked as they passed the diagonal slash of the empty carpeted living room, and Arthur sighed ruefully.

"Unfortunately, not." he replied with feeling. "Furnished homes are a bit out of my pocket, don't you know. Being a private eye and an author-"

"-barely manages to cover the bills." Bel finished with an impatient sigh, then paused to whirl around and jab a finger into his chest, her cheeks puffed out in a mock pout of rage. " _You_ need to find something more high-paying! I won't ask you to leave your writing or your investigative jobs, but maybe if you move back here my brother and I can find you something a bit more lucrative!"

"Is that so…" Arthur sighed, then blinked. "Wait a tic. About your brother-"

Bel withdrew her finger as her hand curled into an uncertain fist, blushing as her arm hung down. "Erm, well…"

The blonde Brit folded his arms and raised one ( _perfectly proportioned_ ) eyebrow, waiting silently as he stared Bel down. Through long experience –and the benefit of psychological training– Arthur knew that this was the best way to draw out information from any subject, ever. He'd used this particular pose on Bel dozens of times in their past association, and it never failed to draw out results. Bel had a habit of, whenever confronted with a possible secret, flushing guiltily and curling in on herself, squirming and then disengaging if possible.

"Uh…okay, Arthur Kirkland, I _know_ you're on the side of the British law or whatever, but I _promise_ that Ned hasn't done anything illegal." she began rapidly, uncurling her hand and raising her arm as she gestured defensively. They were making progress –to speed it along, Arthur raised his other brow, still remaining silent. Bel's cheeks darkened and she shifted from one foot to another; finally, she clasped her hands together and the words all spilled out in a rushing torrent.

"BackhomeNedmetsomereallycrazypeopleduringmedschoolandhesortofkindofdishedoutafewfavorshereandthereandnowtheyowehimandhejustsortofkindofgotsuckeddownaholeandnowwhenwemovedhereheusedthosefavorstomakemorepeopleowehimfavorsandnowhe'sgotdirtonprettymuchlikeeveryoneandeverythingintheundergroundnetworkand-"

She sputtered to a halt, avoiding his gaze and blushing bright red enough to start emitting steam as she squirmed her shoulders and rubbed a thumb over her interlocked fists.

Arthur blinked slowly as his brows lowered, methodically filtering through that information and deciphering the run-together mashup of words. Finally, his eyes widened, and despite himself he let out a small whistle of surprise.

"So you're telling me that Ned dished out a few bits and bobs during his days as a medical student, and now everybody on the wonky side of the law reports in to him." he said, and Bel immediately spread and waved her hands, her blush receding the tiniest portion.

"No, no! He'd never do anything that bad, h-he's not in the _mafia!"_ she spluttered indignantly, then, seemingly reassured by his lack of outrage and accusation, continued. "He just sort of…knows things, and people tell him things, and people owe him favors, and s-sometimes…money may or may not change hands. He's well-connected." Bel finished primly.

"He's a bleeding underground black-market information dealer." Arthur snapped in awe, and she flushed deeply.

"…sort've." Bel muttered bashfully after a few moments, her head lowered to hide her face, her posture hangdog.

Arthur blew out a long sigh, then slowly raked a hand through his bangs. "Anything else? Any other illicit activities in your family to report?" he asked without intonation, and Bel shook her head silently. "Right then. We might have to pop by his place for information at some point. He, or some of his associates, may have information we need."

Bel's head shot up as she blinked her huge green eyes twice. "Wait, you're…you're _okay_ with that?!" she spluttered in surprise, and a smile managed to twitch up the corners of Arthur's mouth.

"Luv, there aren't enough stars in the sky to describe how many times I've gone to someone a bit dodgy for my sources –and not all of them for books." he chuckled, tugging his lapels a bit straighter with mockingly-pompous importance. "I don't mind it, as long as no one gets hurt."

The beribboned blonde let out a long sigh of relief, tilting her head with a gentle smile. "Thanks, Artie." she said gratefully.

He smiled in return as the tense moment passed, and moved to clasp her shoulder reassuringly as he strode past her into the kitchen. "It's alright, luv. I won't tattle."

She smiled, and he slid his working knife into the empty block on the counter. "Right then, let's get me squared away."

 _***Time Skip***_

Bel had kindly packed the addition of an old cot of hers and some blankets and pillows along with the rest of his effects –he'd forgotten about that when he neglected to go home– so he had somewhere and something to sleep on, and she had even offered to stay the night (or let him doze at her place), but Arthur had kindly refused.

He had work to do.

Descending down the narrow stairwell that sunk straight as an arrow and steep as a cliff down into the ground, Arthur flicked on the quavering light of the overhead bulb, and by its dim glow found his way over to the ordinary house lamp incongruously set upon the bare concrete floor, with its cord trailing away into one of the few basement outlets. With this on, shedding some harsh white fluorescent light over the barren concrete room, the setting seemed less of one where a masked goon would leap out of the shadows to plunge a broad knife into his chest and more of a place that was, while not comfortable, at least habitable to humankind.

A corkboard had been hung up on one of the far walls, between the cheap plywood built-in shelves, and Arthur set down the rattling box of thumbtacks and string he had been carrying, spreading his sheaf of papers out beside it. He began pinning the papers to the board, clustering them with an eye for time and purpose, as of the moment. Last and anything but least, he slipped out the red Missing Persons notice that had been filed on Allen Jones twelve years ago.

"Right." The blonde Brit chose a white thumbtack, and pushed it firmly into the cork, where it stuck fast, nailing the old, stiff red construction paper firmly to the board. He tied a thin white string around the thumbtack, leading it off to the obituary report on Alfred's…remains. Directly underneath the report hung several photos of their living room, before and after the police tape and paraphernalia had been taken down, and on the white string between the two pins, Arthur taped a small sheet of note paper with his scribbles written in plain black pen.

* * *

 _Allen kills Alfred._

 _How?  
 _(Levitating the drawers? Using death-memory to imprint his own fatal fall or accident(?) on Alfred?)  
 _[Look into this when find Allen's COD. Inspect living room mirror more closely for any clues.]___

 _Why?  
 _(Revenge? A grudge? Pure psychopathy and spite?)  
 _[Also look into when finding COD, as the two are frequently related. Perhaps wrangle out of spirit on next visit.]___

 _To what point and purpose, if any?  
 _(For company in death? For punishment? …?)  
 _[Will discover when find out Why.]___

* * *

As he added new theories, questions, and leads, Arthur would pencil them in, and if he conclusively proved or disproved any, he would mark them off in a highlighter or a red check mark, respectively. When he got new material, he would pin _it_ up, and trail of howsoever many questions or thoughts he had and needed. He _would_ find out why Allen had killed Alfred, and he _would_ punish the ghost for killing his foster-brother, and for the murder of Allen's own flesh and blood.

Arthur pulled a cigarette from his pocket and struck a match, touching it to the tip and then shaking it out as his cigarette lit up. He inhaled, then plucked the thin stick from his mouth and exhaled slowly, blowing smoke against the tiny string diagram as he narrowed his green eyes, thinking harder than he had ever thought before. Standing before this tiny cluster of clues, Arthur Kirkland plotted and planned, all of his intellect centered on one and only one question.

 _If I were Allen and I wished to flee from home, where would I go first?_

 _ **6.24 PM, UK Coordinated Universal Time**_


	10. Collecting Fibers

**_I'm writing a fic that involves 2p!s, and what did I have for dinner the night after I finished the last chapter? Pizza from a place called Luciano's. Truly, the universe works in mysterious ways. The shops and so on mentioned here all actually do exist (I used Google), but I must remind you all that the people I mention are all fictional and are intended to bear no resemblance to any real people, living or dead. Therefore, please don't bug them. And hello to_** _Mondechan_ ** _, whose appreciation for the story is much appreciated._** _Guest_ ** _, your wait is over._**

 _ **June 23rd, 2018**_

* * *

 _Oranges and lemons,  
_ _Say the bells of St. Clement's._

 _You owe me five farthings,  
_ _Say the bells of St. Martin's._

 _When will you pay me?  
_ _Say the bells of Old Bailey._

 _When I grow rich,  
_ _Say the bells of Shoreditch._

 _When will that be?  
_ _Say the bells of Stepney._

 _I do not know,  
_ _Says the great bell of Bow._

 _Here comes a candle to light you to bed,  
_ _And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!_

* * *

 _3_ _rd_ _Person POV:_

The air was cold and faintly damp, like a cave, and the faint flickering lightbulb above glowed like an archaic lantern, contrasted to the harsh white blast of light coming from the table lamp on the floor. Soft muttering sounds bounced off the bare walls and concrete floor –the _skritch_ of a pen, a cracking rustle of paper, muted sounds of aborted exclamations and hushed tails of syllables, fragments of words born out of a mind racing far ahead of the commands of its body. Dots of ink stained Arthur fingertips, a mug of tea steaming softly on a shelf safely beneath the sheafs of paper he was so feverishly scribbling his thoughts upon.

* * *

 _Allen kills Alfred._

 _Allen left on a bike –make and model?  
 _See DMV –modifications also (decals, paint, repairs, etc.)  
__

 _Nearest DMV:  
_ _ _ _2929 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis___

 _Minneapolis Motorcycle Dealers (Carriers of Harley Davidson) :_

 _Honda Town  
 _4215 E Lake St, Minneapolis  
__

 _Midwest Cycle Supply  
 _4300 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis__

 _Go Moto  
 _3346 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis__

 _Scooterville Minnesota  
 _904 19th Ave S, Minneapolis__

 _2K Motorsports  
 _6525 Penn Ave S, Minneapolis__

 _The Moto Collective  
 _211 St Anthony Pkwy, Minneapolis__

 _Twin Cities Harley-Davidson Blaine  
 _1355 98th Ave NE, Blaine__

* * *

 _PD –check in with Ludwig to see why there was no follow-up on Allen's report after Alfred's death. Should have been procedure even if parents did not push for it._

 _Police leads & progress –also check with L._

 _L's thoughts on the matter._

* * *

 _Direction?_

 _Allen had a Brooklyn accent, obviously not local._

 _Former college student, obviously little wealth. May have turned to petty crime to support self?_

 _No leads from PD, check police records in that area._

* * *

Dozens upon dozens of other sheafs of paper littered the shelves, Arthur's only form of writing surface, detailing phone numbers, email, police station locations, record, and anything else readily available to the public internet, and Arthur paused to run his aching pen-hand through his ruffled blonde hair. His eyelids felt heavy, and without looking he fumbled underneath the shelf for his mug of tea. He put it to his lips and took a long sip, _willing_ the dry sludgy sensation against his teeth and the back of his throat to be either the massive dose of sugar he had put in or the natural dose of caffeine the drink held.

He blinked sluggishly when the tea seemed to have no effect, looking down at his wrist and pulling back the sleeve of his jacket.

 _1.37 AM_

"Ugh…"

Words could not _express_ Arthur's disdain for the hours he was currently keeping, but god _damnit_ Alfred was murdered and Arthur was the only one who even had an inkling of how or why. Sleep could wait. _Everything_ could wait. The heat in his eyes was not only from exhaustion, and his fists clenched hard at his sides.

 _"You're going back to England?"_

 _Alfred's sapphire eyes blinked from behind his square-rimmed glasses, and Arthur suppressed the urge to frown as he glanced up into them, knowing that it would upset the 17-year-old greatly. His foster brother had shot up like a weed these past few years, and now topped Arthur's height by a good margin, even when they were both sitting. At age 21, Arthur didn't exactly care to be reminded of the fact that his younger and admittedly in all ways more immature foster brother was taller and broader across the shoulders than he was, and never mind Arthur's jujitsu training._

 _"Well, the competition back home is less fierce. And it's to be admitted, I've never really quite gotten the hang of your systems." Arthur huffed, adjusting the smooth lapels of his jacket self-consciously._

 _A slow half-grin slipped onto Alfred's face. "D'ya mean metric, Fahrenheit, or our wacky MN weather?" he jibed, and as expected Arthur scowled and lightly punched his shoulder._

 _"Don't be a tosser." he scoffed as Alfred looked away._

 _"Okay, yeah, but c'mon, seriously!" the younger blonde whined like a child, knocking his head back against the wall. "Movin' back to England? That's like, way far away!"_

 _"And don't be a whiny little brat either." Arthur looked down at the book in his lap and licked a finger, turning the page._

 _Alfred didn't say anything, but his face fell in that kicked-puppylike way that always made Arthur feel like an utter arse, even if he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing._

 _It was odd. Even though the two of them there were sitting only a few feet apart on Alfred's fluffy blue bed, Arthur felt as though miles of distance had just been put up between them, a wall created by his words and plans that had then spread apart and distanced the two of them as effectively as if the older blonde had already been plonked down on the other side of the Atlantic. The barrier between them was nothing new, of course –but it had just widened sharply._

 _As Arthur gazed without reading upon his page, the answer came to him slowly. It was not him who changed, or at least, his change was not the sole cause of their distance. Alfred, too, was changing, in his graduating year of high school, poised and ready to fling himself into college and higher education. He had a job selling comics and such (Arthur was not the only one to tease him for that, poor bloke) at a local store, he was taking AP courses to prepare him for the extensive education necessary to become a barrister, and Alfred was finally starting to branch out from his small group of friends._

 _No longer would Alfred come and ask his elder brother about the fireflies he had caught in a jar, huge blue eyes wide with wonder, certain that Arthur know all about the flickering bugs purely by virtue of his age. No longer would Alfred fling himself dramatically through Arthur's door and toss himself or his homework dramatically on the bed, bewailing his time constraints and/or the knotty problems contained within his papers. No longer would Alfred enthusiastically drag him down to the living-room couch for some inane movie marathon that Arthur always ended up secretly enjoying, for the popcorn-rich bonding time if nothing else. No longer would Alfred clobber him every winter with a well-made snowball, starting an epic snowy battle that always ended up dragging every other child on the block into the fierce melee._

 _The gangly brat had finally grown up, and he was starting to pull away from Arthur._

 _"Well, I guess we'll just have to send you off the best way that we can!" Alfred suddenly laughed, baring his glittering white teeth in a broad Pan-Am smile as he nudged Arthur nearly hard enough to overbalance him. "Whaddya say about maybe headin' out with Gil and Mattie and having a totally kickass camping party? We can do a campfire and roast s'mores and tell ghost stories and hike and fish and swim, and you can stare at a bunch'a nifty rocks!"_

 _"For god's sake, Alfred, I'm not **that** much of a geologist. I just like to take the time to admire your natural deposits of agates and quartz…"_

Arthur's breath hissed through his teeth, and he slammed a fist down against the wooden shelf, making the thin surface creak in warning complaint. Even when they were well-trimmed, his grip was so tight that his nails bit into his palm with little harsh stings. He blinked back the tears of rage and pain welling in his eyes, leaning his forehead forward and resting it against the cool wood, closing his eyes as he did.

 _Breathe. Breathe. Relax. **Temper**. _ The blonde Brit cautioned himself, taking in and blowing out a long calming breath. _You need to focus. Don't get distracted. **Focus**. Calm, cool, centered._

A few more measured breathes bought Arthur time to implement that strategy, and slowly, the boiling rage and grief in his heart lowered into a mere simmering sense of aching loss and anger. He raised his bowed head and unclenched his hands, pausing to frown at the four little red crescents in each palm. It was getting too late for this kind of buggery –when he was reduced to seething and uncontrollable shifts in temper, his resources were all but tapped out. Arthur needed to sleep and recharge his battery, as it were, and it wasn't as if he could contribute further at this time of nigh…morning. No one else was awake, except those working the graveyard shift, and few if any of the establishments he needed to visit had overnight hours.

It was time to hit the hay and hope for a better tomorrow.

Forcing himself to turn away from his spun web of supposition, guesswork, and late-night internet searches, Arthur shook his head and turned out the lights, starting to climb –almost literally– up the cold, steep staircase. Perhaps it was due to his sleep-deprived state, but he had a strong feeling as if he should be knocking in belay anchors and attaching carabiners to the hard surface as he clawed his way upwards, shivering and wishing for a good cuppa or a better heating system for the downstairs portions of the house. The chill was familiar but different from the death-cold that ghosts carried with them, though similar enough to put up the hair on the back of Arthur's neck and imperceptibly hasten his steps. He _knew_ he was fine, and safe, but knowledge and instinct were two very different beasts, and the deathly frost that had seared the flesh of his throat made even the memory of cold a harbinger of danger and a warning of wicked things to come.

Confined in a freezing, dark, narrow place, with his breath feeling as if it must be misting before him in the pitchy blackness, a phantom of fear lurked over Arthur's shoulders, sending his hair to prickling and his spine to tensing, lending wings to his feet as he all but scampered up those last few steps and slammed the solid oak door behind him.

Safer, now, in the light and heat, Arthur exhaled slowly and went to go make himself that tea.

 _***Time Skip***_

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

Arthur wanted to swat away that annoying sound permeating his senses, like a gnat buzzing around his ear. Even after lord-knew-how-many-hours of sleep, his body still felt heavy and sluggish under the warm clasp of the duvet blanket and the marginal softness of the cot beneath him. It told him that he was sleep-deprived, and not well-equipped to function. Arthur needed more rest to recharge his brain, help keep him at optimal capacity, otherwise he might falter and fail at the worst time possible.

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

No. No no no no no no no. Arthur was _not_ prepared to engage as a functioning human being. He grunted and burrowed deeper into the minor give of the flat pillow that Bel had provided for him, hoping with every ounce of his foggy intelligence that the phone would just _go away_.

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

With a long, rattling groan that would not be out of place in a Hollywood zombie flick, Arthur stretched out his hand from underneath his warm cocoon and fumbled on the soft carpet beside him. His fingers found a smooth, thin, rectangular object, and with a little more fumbling, the part of the touchpad that would silence it.

 _Bzzt._

 _Bz-_

Blessed silence reigned. Arthur withdrew his hand and squirmed deeper into his fluffy nest of blanket and pillow, already sliding back into the second stage of sleep as cottony warmth wrapped around him and his aching, heavy body begged for recuperation, fogging his senses as completely as if he had been drugged.

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

 _Bzzt._

"Oh fer fu's sake…" Arthur slurred angrily, cringing into his pillow as he tried to spontaneously become deaf. "Fuckin'…"

He reached out and seized the phone again, and it was only after a solid ten seconds of muzzy deliberation that he decided to answer instead of flinging it into the adjacent wall. If he flung it, it might still continue ringing, but farther away from him and out of the reach of his silencing hand, and if it was someone calling him about something important, he would miss vital information about the case.

Clumsily, he hit "Answer" and brought it to his ear without even checking the caller ID. "Wha'd you want?" he mumbled hazily.

" _Artie? Oh thank god, I'd been calling for ages, I thought something must've happened! I was just about **this** **close** to saying "fuck it" and swinging by your place with a tire iron and a shitload of salt! Do you know how late it is?_ "

"Mm-mm. Jus' woke up to you callin' me." Arthur yawned, his eyelids already dragging downwards as his sense of urgency slipped away. She was just calling to make sure he was alive (debatable) and well (also debatable). No emergency. He could go back to sleep.

" _It's almost four in the afternoon, Arthur. How late did you stay up last night?_ "

"Mornin'. This morning. I stayed up. That late." he slurred, having to think carefully over each and every word that his clumsy tongue and lips would form before he could coax them out of his Neanderthal-esque frontal cortex.

" _Oh jeez, you really do need to get more sleep. You're getting too old for this stay-up-all-night crap, and don't you lie to me and say you aren't!"_

"Mm-hm."

" _I'm sure you have something to show for that long night of research, so I'll make sure you're awake and conscious to implement your ideas, but you really need to get some shut-eye. I'll stop by in an hour to pull you out of the house, 'kay?"_

"M'kay."

" _Go to sleep, Artie. You sound exhausted."_

"M'kay."

Arthur barely had the energy and coherence to hit the "End" button on the phone before it slipped from his fingers, and even then he was uncertain if he had done it as he curled back up into the blankets and drifted off.

 _***Time Skip***_

It turned out that Bel _had_ needed to shake him awake, after all, and Arthur staggered down into the basement feeling more groggy than anything, even after five whole cups of sugar-loaded tea, even as he hit dial on the phone. It picked up almost immediately, which was no less than he expected.

" _Farmington Police Station, how may I help you?_ " came a brisk, hard-edged voice that Arthur didn't recognize.

"My name's Arthur Kirkland, and I would like to speak with Officer Ludwig Beilschmidt, if that's at all possible." Arthur asked as politely as he could manage in his still-drowsy voice, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes with his free hand.

" _Yes_." the other officer –definitely an officer, by the no-nonsense tone, and not a receptionist– replied after a short, seemingly reluctant pause. " _Please hold_."

With little other option, Arthur waited as airy, tinkling music started playing in the phone receiver. He swayed a little in place, and Bel reached out a friendly arm to steady him. Arthur flashed his partner a brief smile, and retuned his attention to the floaty melody in the phone's speaker. If he had to guess, this particular piece would be-

" _Hello? Kirkland? This is Officer Beilschmidt. You wanted to speak with me?_ "

"Yes, hello. I've dug up some interesting information that I think, perhaps, may be pertinent to the case. Do you have a moment?"

There was a faint rustle and a few clunks, as if Ludwig had hurriedly sat down and rummaged for paper, or pushed a few folders aside. " _Of course. What do you have for me?_ "

Arthur inhaled slowly. He would have to filter his information carefully, here, and link it all back to evidence that could be copied over and clearly traced back to mundane matters. "I was trying to find some leads independently, as you might know, and I discovered that Alfred had an older brother by the name of…Allen Jones. He disappeared twelve years ago, and I was wondering, what exactly was the summation of the police investigation for that incident? I was wondering if the two events might perhaps be connected…"

" _Allen Jones, Allen Jones_ …" Officer Ludwig muttered to himself slowly, the name sending a jolt down Arthur's spine, to hear it spoken by another so unwarily. " _Name's not inherently familiar. If he disappeared that long ago, Alfred would've been seven…my older brother would've been nine. I don't remember any particular stir, but then –I wasn't an overly attentive child to anything but my schoolwork and activities. Let my check the records. Please hold_."

Arthur held, as there was a faint click and a different piece of airy-fairy music began.

This pause was significantly longer, but then again, Ludwig had to sort through a dozen years' worth of files and so on, though Arthur was unaware if they were electronic or physical. At last, the other end picked up again –there was a soft _vrrrrm_ and a shuffle of paper, leading Arthur to believe that something had been printed and laid out on the desk.

" _Allen Jones, age 20, last seen at the Holland-Handers diner at 3 PM on October 17, in the year of-_ " Ludwig briskly read off the rest of the expected details, which Arthur already knew and waited impatiently for him to finish. "- _son of Cathy Jones, née Hassan, née Rogers, and Gupta Muhammad Hassan_."

That was news to Arthur, but –should have been expected, due to the circumstances. The dusky tint to Allen's skin, even in death, seemed too complete to have come from mere lazing about in the sun in retrospect. "Does it mention what happened to his biological father? Mightn't he have run away to this Hassan?"

" _One of our first trains of thought, apparently. Despite having to go all the away to Manhattan to confirm, it came up as a dud pretty quickly. Gupta Hassan died in a car crash when Allen was two. After her remarriage, Cathy Jones paid to have his name changed_."

"Ah". _Bugger_. "Any other leads?"

" _None of note. We questioned witnesses, family members, school friends –not many of those, and it looks more like they were casual acquaintances– and he was unemployed, so no work associates to question, either. Apparently the officers in charge of the case ran his plates and spoke to a few of the mechanics for his motorcycle, but those people came up clean too. No likely suspects of any kind, or even unlikely ones, for that matter, and no evidence or clues to what had happened or when Allen Jones went. According to the reporting sergeant, it seemed like a pretty open-and-shut runaway case, and with an adult, no less, so technically not police business at all. Case was closed, and after the first year or so, even your parents stopped pestering the station about it._ " There was a pause, and Arthur could almost hear the pensive, eyebrow-furrowing frown from Ludwig on the other end. " _But you're right. I'm not liking how this smells. A homicide in the same family as an unsolved disappearance? Hm-hm-hm_ …"

"Speaking of which," Arthur asked, his throat feeling tight. "How goes the investigation on Alfred?"

" _It's not, and that's the problem._ " Ludwig replied bluntly. " _Forensics can't even figure out how Alfred died, much less why the murder was committed in such a fashion, and we're running in circles because every single possible suspect has an ironclad alibi; even in the case of a freak accident from a passing psychopath, there weren't any itinerants within the most pessimistic driving distance of the Jones household on that night._ " The officer's breath hissed through his teeth in frustration. " _It's like he was killed by a ghost!"_

There was a pang in Arthur's chest –that one hit a little bit too close to home.

"I have my utmost confidence in you." he said woodenly after a few moments. "If it's not too much trouble, I'd like the paperwork for Allen Jones's investigation, since I need to do something to keep myself busy."

" _Sure. Same email as last time?_ "

"Yes please."

" _Right, I'll send you the information. I don't think I need to remind you of confidentiality?_ "

"Of course not."

" _Right. Goodbye_."

"Ta."

The line disconnected, and Arthur lowered his phone as he moved to silence it. "So he's a missing case –unsolved. They never found any leads." the blonde announced to Bel without looking up, as her lively, curious face hovered at the edges of his vision. "They checked with family members, associates, and his mechanic. None had information, and all had alibis for his time of disappearance. Case was all-but-closed as a runaway incident."

"So they're right, and he was probably a runaway, and he died out of state, in New York or wherever?" Bel asked shrewdly, and Arthur nodded slowly, pursing his lips.

"He at least _went_ there, or somewhere near there. The accent's too ingrained to be an affectation, and too light to be something he had for a while. Fits with the image, he didn't look all that much older than twenty as a ghost."

Bel inhaled and exhaled slowly, and then placed a hand on his shoulder. "What are you going to do now?" she asked.

Arthur had to think on that one. The likeliest, most efficient, and most useful course of action would to be to go to New York and search out where Allen had gone in life, which would inevitably lead to how he met his death –and hopefully, why that led him to kill Alfred. However, there was a slight problem; making excuses.

His parents, though well-meaning, were at the stage of grief where every shadow around Arthur was a mass-murderer and every car passing him on the street was a criminal waiting to pounce, and clung to the British blonde like rampant, strangling vines, terrified of losing their last son. There was Officer Beilschmidt to consider, and the other police, who would want to know why Arthur suddenly felt Allen would have gone to New York, what has made him think thus, and how he knew who to visibly search for.

The last was easily remedied. There would undoubtably be a photograph in the files Ludwig sent him, as they were almost always included in a Missing Persons file. Whether or not it matched Allen's most "recent" look, the look he died as, didn't matter. Arthur would have a basis for his claims of knowing Allen's face and form.

But how to suggest making such a trip…

Those at Inver College knew Arthur knew what Allen looked like, but that could be explained away by a specious old family photo which had started his whole investigation (though Arthur had never seen any) and with luck, they would never come under interrogation. For mundane information, Arthur had a red construction-paper Missing Persons report, the admission of his mother over the phone, and a few misdemeanor reports from the community college Allen had attended. If this was a regular matter, Arthur had to admit he would be stumped for finding more information. His mantra from the night before came back to him.

 _If I were Allen and I wished to flee from home, where would I go first?_

Arthur knew now, unequivocally, that he'd gone to New York. But _why_? What did New York hold for Allen Jones that other avenues of escape did not?

A thought tickled at the back of his brain. Hadn't Alfred said that long ago, so long he was only a toddler-in-arms, that the family had used to take trips to visit a relative in New York?

Allen, the elder brother by thirteen years, would have _definitely_ been able to remember that. Had he fled to this relative –with perhaps fatal results?

Wait. Why had the trips stopped to begin with?

"Arthur?" Bel asked gently, making him come to himself with a start.

"I think I have something." he replied briskly, moving his finger over his phone as he opened the email Ludwig had already sent. "When Alfred was very young, apparently our family used to go to New York on holiday to visit a relative. Allen would have been old enough to remember the experience…"

"-and so he might've gone to NYC to stay with that relative. Good job, Artie!" Bel beamed triumphantly, and he flashed a quick smirk, paging through the files.

"But the trips stopped by the time Alfred turned five. I want to know why." he muttered, flicking through the electronic records in search of the next-of-kin sections. His heart leapt when he found them.

* * *

 _Jones, Cathy (Mother)  
 _Jones, Derek (Stepfather)  
 _Jones, Alfred (Half-brother)___

 _Hassan, Gupta (Father, deceased)  
 _Hassan, Khemet (Paternal Grandmother, deceased)__

 _Jones, L-_

* * *

Allen's grandmother. Who, presumably, dwelled in the same place as her son –Manhattan. New York. And that borough was only a stone's throw away from the Bronx, the place where Allen had, presumably, settled and gotten that telltale accent.

Arthur knew a likely scent when he found one. The ghost would have been 18 when those visits to his grandmother had stopped, a scant two years from the time he ran away. New York still would have been familiar to him, and cast adrift in the wide and unfriendly world, Arthur knew from experience just how much safer even the most mildly familiar place might seem. So Allen had made his way to New York, believing –as it had rightly turned out– they the police would have no way of knowing for sure that that was where he had gone. As long as Allen had avoided old haunts and the New York police for six months or so, it would have been almost impossible to confirm that that was where he had gone. He would have, and had, disappeared into the seething throng of the metropolis like smoke in the wind.

And then –what?

He had died. Somehow, somewhere, Allen Jones had died, and his death had been both unmarked and unmourned, to escape official notice and recording.

It was all-too-likely that Allen was the victim of murder himself.

 _ **1.11 PM, USA Central Time**_


End file.
